


Of Pizza and Baseball

by rensahannou (asmalltigercat)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Werewolves, Baseball, Chef Derek, Coach Stiles, M/M, Pizza, Slow Build, Stiles and Scott are best friends forever and ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asmalltigercat/pseuds/rensahannou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deputy Laura Hale wants Stiles to coach her kid's baseball team, and since Stiles would really like an <i>actual</i> job at the department, she offers him a deal.</p><p> </p><p>Pros of this deal:<br/>- Laura's help in (maybe) getting an official internship<br/>- Free pizza at the Hales' pizza place</p><p> </p><p>Cons:<br/>- Small children<br/>- The parents of small children<br/>- Having to come face-to-face with Derek Hale for the first time since Stiles left for college. Six years ago.</p><p> </p><p>...Why did he agree to this, again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this one time there was a baseball game playing when I was at a pizza parlor, and the fact that there are Little League trophies in Stiles's room.
> 
>  **Tag notes:** As I noted in the tags this is an AU, but the Hales are still werewolves (because why not?). As of right now, though, I don't see there being a werewolf reveal in this fic, so since it's Stiles's POV it's basically just background info.
> 
> Also, if anyone needs to know what the "minor or background relationships" are, just let me know.
> 
>  **Update schedule:** And yes, I'm posting another WIP, but my plan is to update this one every Friday (more info [on my tumblr](http://asmalltigercat.tumblr.com/post/121971448285/fic-posting-schedule)). I've got a few chapters already done, so it should work out okay. ♥
> 
> (Also re:the name of the Hales' pizza place: I honestly could not help myself.)

As of the summer after Stiles completes his master's in criminal psychology, he has two major goals in life: one is to attend Comic-Con, and the other is to convince the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department that they need to hire a criminal psychologist. The first one was thwarted again this year and is carrying into the next, while the second is proving equally fruitless thus far, despite the fact that his own father is in _charge_ of the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department. 

It's not really his dad's fault that Beacon Hills isn't exactly a hubbub of criminal masterminds, or that Stiles doesn't have that Ph.D. on the end of his name that the state apparently prefers for its paid consultants, but he wouldn't mind a _bit_ more enthusiasm shown for helping him with the goal. 

Stiles is nothing if not _dedicated_ , though, so while his official job this summer is at the library (it's actually pretty awesome, all things considered, and is an especially nice break from the whirlwind of exhaustion the last year of school was), his unofficial one is as an intern at the department. This self-appointed title means that Stiles sticks his nose into any ongoing cases that spark his interest and snoops in old case files whenever he gets the chance, all while pointedly refusing to do anything that might endear him to the actual employees, like maybe bring coffee once in a while.

Astoundingly, despite numerous threats, he hasn't been physically removed from the premises yet.

Stiles is sitting at an empty desk at the station one afternoon in late summer, reading old newspaper clippings (which isn't even breaking a law, or anything), when Deputy Laura Hale materializes in the chair across from him. "Stiles," she says.

"No," Stiles replies, without taking his eyes off the article.

Laura is constantly trying to get Stiles to run errands for her, most of which involve picking up food from her family's pizza place a few blocks away. Stiles steadfastly refuses, for two reasons in particular: one, it's _her family's pizza place_ and Stiles knows for a fact they will willingly deliver to the station, and two, Stiles has avoided stepping foot in that restaurant since he left for college and he has no intention of breaking the streak now.

"Your dad tells me you're good at baseball."

_That_ gets Stiles's attention, and he looks up at her, not sure whether to be confused or suspicious. "Um. No?"

Laura raises an eyebrow at him. "You don't play baseball?"

"No—I mean, yeah, I _play_ , I _have played_ , but that's not—why are we talking about this? Has there been a baseball-related crime?" That's actually kind of an exciting prospect.

"Yes," Laura says, nodding solemnly, and Stiles sits up straighter in his seat. "The coach for my son's Little League team is missing."

"Oh, wow," Stiles says, sitting forward a little, mind already whirling with possibilities. A disgruntled parent? Rival coach? Stiles doesn't remember the coaches being that cutthroat when he was in Little League, but _you never know_. "How long has it been? Any leads?"

"Just one," Laura says, clasping her hands together on the desk and leaning forward conspiratorially. Stiles leans in as well, unthinking. "He said he was moving to Sacramento. That was about a week ago."

Stiles opens his mouth to speak, and then stops. Blinks. Narrows his eyes. "Your son's coach, huh."

"Disappeared," Laura says with a slight hand wave. Stiles can see the smile she's hiding, now. "Leaving a gaping hole in my son's baseball-loving heart. So. You play baseball, right?"

"No," Stiles says, leaning back again. He wishes he had a full newspaper in front of him so he could hold it up and block her from view.

"Come on, Stiles," Laura says, splaying a hand over the article he'd been reading. "Practice is supposed to start next week and they have _no one_. The fall season isn't as big a deal as the spring, but it's still important to the kids, you know?"

"So get someone in your family to do it," Stiles says, crossing his arms. "My dad coached my team, it was awesome."

"Your dad is the one who suggested I talk to you," Laura counters, crossing her own arms as well. "He said that you loved Little League as a kid, and so he was sure you'd jump at the chance to help out some kids in need and let them have the same experience."

Stiles snorts. "My _dad_ did not say that."

Laura puts her palms on the desk in a manner slightly reminiscent of an interrogation technique. Stiles is unimpressed. "My family sponsored your team, you know."

"Oh yeah? My dad tell you that, too?"

"No," Laura says, smiling like she has evidence he doesn't. "There's a picture of you at bat in your living room. Your uniform has ‘Hale Pizza’ on the back."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Congratulations on the detective work, Deputy Hale. So I owe you, then. That's what you're saying."

"However you want to see it," she says, smile growing a little but softening, too. "You'd get free pizza."

Stiles considers this. The Hales do make some freaking awesome pizza.

"How old are the kids?" he asks, tentatively, watching his fingers move a loose newspaper clipping in a slow circle.

"Nine and ten. And like I said, this is the fall season, so it's more about just teaching them how to play and making sure they have fun. All the games are on Sundays, so it shouldn't interfere with the library too much."

"What about my internship?" Stiles asks, looking up and making eye contact. 

"Tell you what," Laura says, leaning forward on her arms. "You do this for my kid, and maybe you'll actually _have_ an internship to worry about."

Stiles narrows his eyes again. "You can't promise that."

"No," she agrees, "but you'd at least have someone on your side. And everyone knows I'm your dad's favorite."

That’s true enough. Stiles has heard frequent praise of Laura’s deputy-ing skills from his dad in the years since she joined the department—he literally talks about her like she was the daughter he never had. Stiles likes to think his dad talks about him the same way; maybe he does, if this 'good at baseball' thing is any indication. 

It also makes Stiles think maybe his dad’s been exaggerating a bit about how awesome Laura really is.

Stiles tilts his head back a little, regarding Laura. "So I teach your kid to play baseball, and you somehow convince my dad that a criminal psychologist is just what this department needs?"

"Criminal psychology intern," Laura corrects. "And I'll do my best, as long as you do the same."

Stiles waits a beat, two. Three. "I'll think about it," he finally says. 

Laura rolls her eyes. "You have a day, Stiles." She pushes away from the desk and stands up. "I'll send you an e-mail with the information you'll need."

"Hey, I haven't agreed to anything yet!" Stiles says, but she's already walking away.

—

"They want you to coach a Little League team? Dude, that's awesome."

"It is not awesome, it's extortion," Stiles clarifies. He calls his best friend for moral support and _this_ is what he gets. "And it's completely ridiculous, I mean, I have spent the last _two years_ learning about the inner workings of the criminal mind, and now I'm supposed to hang out with a bunch of little kids on a regular basis? How does no one else see the problem with this?"

"Maybe you can pick out the potential bad ones and save them from a life of crime," Scott suggests, and Stiles can't tell if that's mostly a joke or just half of one. "Maybe that's why Laura picked you. She's afraid one of her kid's friends is going to be a drug lord."

Stiles laughs in spite of himself. "That would make more sense than picking me for my baseball prowess. I have like zero coaching qualifications."

"That is so not true. You played in college."

"I played _intramural_ , Scott, that's basically like Little League for college kids."

"Sounds like a qualification to me," Scott says, grin in his voice, because sometimes he's an asshole.

"Remind me to punch you the next time you're in town," Stiles says. "And anyway, that was in undergrad. I haven't even touched a bat in like two years."

"I thought we agreed not to talk about your sex life," Scott says, and Stiles makes an incoherent noise of frustration and hangs up the phone to the sound of his best friend's laughter. 

—

Stiles learns from Laura’s e-mail that the team in question isn’t actually part of Little League—it’s an unaffiliated, and more casual, youth league—and spends the next few hours reading up on youth baseball from the adult side of things. All he remembers about it from when he was a kid is getting dirty and having fun, spending a lot of time with his dad, and listening to his mom cheering from the bleachers. 

Unsurprisingly, things are a little more complicated when you're a grown-up.

"So Deputy Hale talk to you about coaching her kid's team?" his dad asks over breakfast the next morning.

"Yes, thank you for that," Stiles says with a half-hearted glare.

"What? You loved Little League. I thought you might like the opportunity to get involved again."

Stiles shrugs and pokes at his cereal. "It's not the same. I'm not a kid anymore."

"But you still like baseball," his dad counters.

Stiles heaves an exaggerated sigh. "I _guess_. Although a big part of the appeal is aesthetic and that's completely missing in this case."

"Stiles," his dad says, with a very similar sort of exaggerated sigh.

"There are always the parents, though…" Stiles adds, musingly.

"Finding a date is not the point of coaching a team," his dad scolds.

"'D be a nice side benefit," Stiles says through a mouthful of milk and cereal.

He's pretty sure his dad rolls his eyes. "So you're gonna do it, then?"

"Yeah, I guess," Stiles says with another shrug. "Hey, maybe I'll get a lead on some nefarious criminal act being planned." He drops his spoon, eyes wide, as an idea occurs to him. "Is that—is that what this is? Am I a plant? Is there some sort of criminal ring among the Little League parents?"

" _No_ ," his dad says, looking incredibly put-upon. Stiles has literally been home for two and a half months after giving his dad a break for the better part of six years; he does _not_ deserve that look.

"Are you sure?" Stiles asks, hopeful.

His dad doesn't even answer, just rolls his eyes again and gets up to put his dishes in the sink.

—

_"I have an early shift tomorrow,"_ the voicemail had said, _"so I don't have time to get the check from my mom. You can stop by the restaurant and pick it up; they'll be expecting you."_

It probably should have occurred to Stiles earlier—like, right away, say—that coaching a team sponsored by the Hales' pizza parlor meant he would actually have to _go_ to the pizza parlor.

He's not working today, and he knows if he tries to go hang out at the station Laura will just find out and harass him about not getting the check for the uniforms and equipment yet. So instead he has the whole morning to fight off the mild anxiety the idea of going to the restaurant causes—or to just make it worse, which is more what happens.

It's kind of…stupid, really, that he's like this about it. When he was in high school, Hale Wood-Fired Pizza & Grill (or ‘Halefire Pizza,’ as it's more colloquially known) was a popular student hangout, and he and Scott spent a fair amount of time there. The Hales are a family composed of individuals both incredibly attractive and incredibly self-possessed, and among the teenage crowd at least they were as big a draw as the food itself (which, again, has always been awesome).

And Stiles…was not immune, okay. He was as intrigued as anyone else—maybe even a little moreso than most—by the Hale family mystique, although Laura becoming a deputy during his junior year helped with that some. And then. And _then_. Senior year, Derek _freaking_ Hale waltzed back into town.

Derek had worked at the parlor when he was in high school, but he was at least a few years older than Stiles so Stiles really only had vague memories of a tall boy with dark hair and bright eyes darting back and forth from the kitchen. It was enough for Derek to be recognizable when he came back but not nearly enough to reconcile the difference those years made—maybe more in Stiles than in Derek, really. Because to 17-going-on-18-Stiles, a newly returned Derek Hale was far more captivating than the rest of his family—and, excepting Lydia Martin, the entire senior class of Beacon Hills High—put together.

Stiles wasn't blatant about it. Maybe. Scott never teased him about Derek, but then Scott also never teased him about Lydia, so it didn't necessarily mean Stiles kept his incredibly one-sided infatuation hidden at all. _Derek_ never seemed to notice, and that was the main thing, anyway.

This went on, and on, with Stiles gleaning small bits of info here and there from Laura about her brother along the way, until a few weeks before Stiles left for college when he did something dumb and embarrassing that he still doesn't like to think about, and he hasn't been back to Halefire Pizza since.

Until today, at least.

—

Hale Pizza—which is what the _mature adults_ call it—opens for lunch at 11, and Stiles is there when it opens. Or close to there, anyway. He's down the street a bit. He has no idea who works when anymore (he may or may not have accidentally or intentionally memorized the schedule back in high school), so he doesn't know if he's being sort of ridiculous or completely ridiculous. Or whether it would be better to go when the place is fairly empty or wait for the lunch rush. Or if he should order something while he's there, because he is sort of hungry. When does the whole 'free pizza' policy go into effect, anyway? He'll have to make a point to ask about that.

After stalling to the point where he can no longer physically sit in his car, Stiles makes his way into the restaurant at approximately 11:28. There's one person at the counter picking up what looks like a to-go order, and a lady with two small kids at a far booth. Stiles really hopes those aren't some of his not-really-Little-League kids. They look too young, but what the hell does Stiles know about kids' ages. Or coaching them.

Why is he doing this, again?

Anyway, the girl behind the counter is younger than Stiles and not familiar, which doesn't necessarily mean she isn't a Hale; there were some younger kids in the family before Stiles left, and he has no idea what they would look like now. Maybe she'll have the check for him and he can be in and out without any fuss, or anxiety-inducing encounters with former crushes who are probably even hotter now than they were six years ago. The last time Stiles saw Lydia she looked even better than she had in high school, so that is apparently the way things go for Stiles.

But hey, _Stiles_ is hotter, too. Like, by a lot. He's totally been found attractive by numerous other attractive people in the years since high school. He even had actual sex with a few of them, thus cementing his status as a desirable person. So maybe he _should_ run into Derek.

…Just, y'know, hopefully he won't.

"Good morning," the girl says with a polite smile as the other customer leaves. "Are you making an order to go?"

"No," Stiles says, tapping on the edge of the wooden counter, "I'm actually, uh, here to see the Hale in charge?" He tries to turn it into a joke, and the girl smiles a little so the effort wasn't totally wasted.

"Sure, what's your name?"

"Stiles."

She turns to the open counter into the kitchen and calls out, stopping Stiles's heart with the words: "Derek, you have a visitor!"

"Who?" he calls back, which starts up Stiles's heart again, except in double-time.

"Stiles," the girl says.

Stiles wonders if he should say something else, but then there are footsteps approaching the counter and suddenly, Derek. 

He's wearing a black t-shirt with the restaurant's logo on it, and while it's clean now Stiles knows that's just because it's still early; in a few hours it'll probably be speckled with tomato sauce. He's stubblier than Stiles remembers, but it's close-shaved and sort of artful, almost. His hair is shorter but still dark, and his eyes are—well. Eyes don’t change.

And yeah, he's totally gone and gotten hotter. Because sometimes life just sucks.

"The baseball guy, right?" Derek asks, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"Yeah," Stiles manages with just the barest hint of a squeak.

"The check's in the office. Come on," he says, waving briefly at the swinging door leading into the kitchen. Stiles doesn't have time to question it before Derek's taking off again, and Stiles scrambles through the door to catch up.

"Um, is it okay for me to be back here?" he asks, looking around at the kitchen equipment. 

"Don't touch anything," Derek says without turning around, and Stiles pulls his hands in close to his body immediately. Sometimes they just touch things on their own if he's not careful.

They reach a door that Derek unlocks and opens, and Stiles follows him into the small office. He's never seen this side of the restaurant before and never expected to (although it may have featured in an idle fantasy or two), and it feels sort of exciting, almost illicit. Not that those are really the thoughts he needs to be having at the moment. 

"What position do you play?"

Stiles's attention jumps back to Derek from where it had been wandering, to see him looking in a drawer on the other side of the desk. "What?"

"Baseball?" Derek's eyes flick up to Stiles. "Laura said you play, that's why you're coaching, right?" He takes an envelope out, then closes the drawer and straightens up.

"Oh, uh," Stiles says, and he feels himself blushing for reasons he doesn't want to examine right now, "I uh, played a little at school, but it wasn't—I kind of did a bit of everything, sort of."

Derek regards Stiles silently for a moment—judging him, no doubt—before stretching out his arm to hand the envelope to Stiles. Stiles takes it, glancing at his name on the front to avoid looking at Derek's arm and arm _muscles_ instead, then taps the edge of it lightly against his other hand. "Thanks," he says with an awkward nod. "Um…thanks. I guess I'll let you get back to running a restaurant, and all."

"You're familiar."

Stiles jerks a little in shock; hopefully it wasn't noticeable. "What?" he says again.

Derek's still just looking at him, although his expression has gone considering. "I know who you are—you're the sheriff's son, and you just finished school so you're back in town—" Stiles's heart starts beating wildly until he realizes Derek must have heard all this from Laura— "but I just knew that from your name. _You_ are familiar."

"Well, I am from this town…" Stiles tries, weakly.

"Right," Derek says with a slight nod, "but I didn't think I was here when you were in high school."

"You weren't, until I was a senior," Stiles admits without thinking, then tries to salvage it. "I was here a few times that year, so. Maybe that's why." He shrugs, hoping it's nonchalant and not as jerky as it feels.

"I guess," Derek agrees, eyebrows raised in what looks suspiciously like amusement as he crosses his arms. "So you like our food, then? I don't think I've seen you in here since you've been back."

Stiles had opened his mouth to answer the question, then closed it in embarrassment after the next part. "I've been—busy, you know, working and having an internship and all," he says, waving the envelope in some approximation of the busyness of his summer. "But dude, no, I love your pizza. Your family's pizza. That's half the reason I hang out at the station so much, the regular supply of free Halefire Pizza." 

He feels his face heat at the offhand use of the nickname—plus he wasn't exactly being truthful, although the free pizza at the station is a definite side benefit—but Derek just smiles a little. It makes Stiles's heart do funny, unwanted things.

"You get free pizza whenever you want now, you know," Derek says, as he puts his hands into the pockets of the apron around his waist. It's both hot and cute and it's entirely too much; Stiles has to stifle a whine. "So I’ve been told. You hungry?"

"I—yes," Stiles says, although it sort of sounds like an incredibly forceful question and he feels a little stupid and lightheaded. He has the weirdest feeling that he's being flirted with, maybe, a little, and he doesn't know what to do with that under _normal_ circumstances, and these are anything but.

Maybe Laura just told her brother to be nice to Stiles so he wouldn't back out of the coaching gig. Yes. That's much safer.

"C'mon then, Coach," Derek says, stepping around the desk to head back into the kitchen, and Stiles desperately hopes the full-body shiver he just let out at that went unnoticed.

—

"Scooooootttttt," Stiles says to his friend's voicemail on the way home from the restaurant, "dude, we have a _problem_." He pauses for a couple seconds. "Well, okay, not, like, a _major_ problem, just—call me. As soon as you get this. Or, I mean, as soon as you can, it's not, nobody's _dying_ , just—call me. Bye."

He tries to shove his phone in his pocket, misses it twice, gives up and tosses the phone on the passenger seat instead. He's feeling _wired_ , which isn't exactly rare for him, but this is more distracting than usual. He just keeps thinking about Derek's _face_. And arms. And ass. But mostly his face.

That _smile_. That hadn't been in Stiles's memories of Derek, and it is apparently—well, distracting as _fuck_.

Stiles had intended to run some errands after picking up the check, maybe stop by the bank and see about setting up an account for the team so he could order the uniforms as soon as possible, but he finds himself at his house almost without realizing it. He glances at his phone; he _really_ needs to discuss this whole…situation, and he's probably not going to be able to focus on anything else until Scott calls him back.

In the meantime, though, the house is totally empty.

Stiles grabs his phone and heads upstairs to properly enjoy the memory of Derek's…everything.

—

Scott, in his infinite best-friend prowess, doesn't call back until Stiles has finished, uh, remembering. "Scott," Stiles says, still maybe a little breathless when he answers the phone, "dude, hey."

"Stiles, man, you okay?" Scott asks, sounding appropriately worried after that message Stiles left.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, totally." Stiles sits up, goes to run his free hand through his hair before he thinks better of it. "Completely—everything's good."

There's a brief silence, then—"Ugh, _Stiles_ , really? You know you're not supposed to answer the phone right after you—that is just _gross_ , man."

Stiles blinks a few times. "What? Wait, how—how can you even tell that?"

" _Stiiiiiles_ ," Scott groans. "Just call me back later—"

"No!" Stiles says quickly, before Scott can hang up. "No, come on, I really need to discuss something with you. It's important, dude."

Scott lets out a truly impressive sigh. " _What_ , Stiles. What is so important that we need to have a phone call in total violation of our friendship rules?"

"Okay, first of all, there has never been a verbal acknowledgement of that rule—"

"Because we _don't talk about it_!"

"And we're not talking about it _now_ , we're talking about how I went to Halefire Pizza today!"

"Wait, what? Really?"

Stiles flops backwards on the bed again. "Yeah, they're sponsoring the baseball team, I went to pick up the check for the uniforms and stuff."

"So that was like, the first time you've been there since…"

"Yeah."

"How'd it go? Was, uh—"

"Derek there?" Stiles smiles, which is just, _so_ different from the reaction that name caused this morning. "Yep."

"Okay, you sound—not traumatized, so—oh my _God_ , Stiles, _that's_ what you—you hung out with _Derek_ and then you came home and you— _are now talking to me about it_!"

Stiles rolls his eyes and mentally concedes that Scott _may_ have a point. He probably could have just let the phone ring and at least, like, done more than a cursory clean-up before calling him back. _Too late now_ , though.

"I am _sorry_ for offending your delicate Scotty sensibilities, can we _please_ move on and talk about my _actual problem_ now?"

"The problem where you're still in love with Derek Hale, you mean."

Stiles pulls the phone away from his ear to make an incredulous face at it. "I am _not_ —" He holds it back to his head again. "I was never _in love_ with him, okay, that is a completely unfounded accusation."

"But?" Scott says, tone full of friendly encouragement.

"But he's just so _pretty_ , Scott," Stiles admits with something approaching a whimper. He sits up, glares at his hand, then stands up and heads to the bathroom, keeping an ear out in case his dad gets home unexpectedly. "And look, okay, remember how back in high school Derek was basically, like, the mysterious dude in charge of the ovens, and we only ever saw him waiting tables when the place was pretty much dead? And then he only did the bare minimum?"

"I was really not paying that much attention," Scott says, "but yeah, sure."

Stiles turns the sink on in the bathroom and starts to wash his hands, phone held against his shoulder. "My point is, today I talked to him. Actually _talked_ to him, Scott, and it was _great_ , he _smiled_ at me, and then he offered to make me pizza with anything I wanted and he didn't even judge me for the toppings I picked!"

"Ham, spinach, and banana peppers?"

"And extra cheese, yes, stop _judging_ me."

"So…" Scott says, as Stiles wets a washcloth. "You talked, you flirted, he made you food?"

"That…is a fairly apt summation, yes." The flirting, assuming that's what it was, was subtle, but it still counts.

"And then what?" Scott asks.

"And then there were actual paying customers, so I sat at a table with my awesome pizza and a root beer and ate lunch by myself." He tries not to sigh too much about that.

"Wait," Scott says, sounding serious all of a sudden. "You mean he gave you _free_ pizza?"

" _So_ not the point," Stiles says, but then he grins. "But yeah. Apparently coaching a Hale kid has its perks."

"Man," Scott says, with feeling. " _Lucky_. And hey," he adds, and the grin in his voice is not at all reassuring, "maybe this means you'll be touching bats again before you know it."

Stiles splutters, unbelieving. " _Okay_ , why is it only acceptable to talk about my sex life through shitty baseball metaphors _making fun of it_?!"

Scott laughs. "You're gonna ask him out though, right?"

Stiles sighs as he walks back to his room, tossing the used washcloth in the hamper when he gets there. "Wouldn't that make things weird? I mean, since I can't really get away from the family as a whole until the coaching thing is over. The team's probably going to like, go to the pizza place after games and stuff."

"It'll only be weird if he says no."

"Exactly." Stiles pulls on his discarded underwear and flops back down on his bed. "If he says no, or if the date is terrible, or the next date is terrible, or if there's, you know, anything awkward in the sex department, or—there are literally hundreds of things that could go wrong, Scott. And then I'd have to avoid the issue every time I was at Halefire. And every time I talk to his sister. And shit, Scott, I _work_ with his sister!"

"So you're _not_ going to ask him out, then." Scott sounds vaguely like a disappointed authority figure.

"Hey, it's not like I'm stopping him from asking _me_ out," Stiles says, defensively. "But…yeah, no, I think I'm good with just constantly torturing myself with his face every time I go there. That sounds awesome, actually."

"No, it sounds like high school. Didn't we graduate six years ago?"

"Shut up, you don't even remember what it's like to be single."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Scott says with a laugh. 

"It is for _me_ , because you have no perspective on my life."

"You mean on how you'd rather torture yourself wanting a guy than risk the discomfort of it not working out."

"Yes," Stiles says, nodding.

"You know," Scott says, and Stiles can almost feel the comforting shoulder-pat in the tone of his voice, "I think I'm really okay with not having that kind of perspective."


	2. Chapter 2

Team tryouts are on a Tuesday. The night before, Stiles goes to the closest batting cages, because he really hasn't swung a bat since undergrad and he doesn't need to look like an idiot in front of a bunch of 10-year-olds and their parents.

He's going to look like an idiot _anyway_ , but it shouldn't be because he can't hit a ball, at least.

It feels good, having a bat in his hands again, getting in position to swing. It isn’t something he had much time to miss in the past couple of years, but his intramural games had been some of the best parts of college and going through the motions now is…relaxing, grounding, in a way this summer hasn't really been so far.

The first swing misses, the second connects, and Stiles grins, feels it in his arms. He loses himself in the rhythm of it, the familiarity, and somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks maybe this coaching thing won't be so bad. Maybe it'll even be fun.

—

Or, y’know, chaos. Chaos and fun. Chaotic fun?

Stiles has read a lot about youth leagues and coaching kids in the past week, but when it gets down to it he is completely unprepared to deal with 12 kids and their parents. _Especially_ the parents, actually. They're all older than him—Stiles is only 24—and while most of them seem grateful that he's stepped in at the last minute to save the team (his words, not theirs), they're also all _very opinionated_. 

Laura, though, Laura helps to corral them, and Stiles would so owe her for that if he wasn't already doing her a favor. She's younger than a lot of the other parents herself, but she's a cop and also has a natural leadership quality that just really comes in handy. Maybe Stiles will bring her coffee the next time he goes to the station. _Maybe_. 

The kids aren't really trying out to be on the team, technically, because as Stiles understands it they only turn kids away if too many want to play. Since only 12 kids show up, they're all guaranteed a spot, and Stiles is mostly just getting to know them and their abilities so he can start figuring out positions and the best way to structure practices. There's also a lot of information to gather from parents which, after some initial confusion, Laura offers to take charge of. Meaning she gets to collect sign-up forms and various signed waivers while fielding questions she probably doesn't know the answers to, because Stiles most likely doesn't know the answers himself because _he has no idea what he's doing_.

The kids are way less judgmental about that, though, so he's glad he's dealing with them today. He knows he'll be dealing with parents by phone and e-mail pretty much constantly until the first practice, and maybe even past that, but for now he just has to throw a ball around with some kids and see who can actually catch it, and that—is still sort of terrifying, but it's manageable.

He learns all the kids' names, gets them paired up with a ball per pair and a glove each (some brought their own, some didn't, but there were spares in the field’s storage room), spaces them all about the same distance apart and has them toss the ball back and forth so he can see which ones are actually capable of throwing and catching a ball and who needs some extra attention. He walks around and offers encouragements and some tips while making notes on his clipboard.

It's all very coach-like, and kind of cool.

He lets the kids warm up first by throwing the ball a short distance, then gets them to gradually increase it. Of course, half the time the kids overshoot and have to run after the ball and don't space themselves right when they get back, but whatever, he's mostly just trying to keep them busy so no one realizes he's never coached anything before in his life.

Before the kids start to look bored with throwing baseballs, he tells them to line up to bat and run the bases. They all seem pretty excited about this, and he can't help grinning at their enthusiasm. The parents have mostly settled down by this point, either filling out their paperwork or sitting on the bleachers to watch their kids, so Laura is free to be his catcher. He's got a whole freaking bucket of baseballs so they don't have to worry about going after the ones that get hit. 

Stiles wasn't a pitcher when he played, exactly—he did do a bit of everything, like he told Derek, but pitching was never his strong suit—but he figures he can do well enough for a Little League field. Some of the kids hit the ball, quite a few of them don't. But he tells them to run to first base whether they hit it or not, and tries to be exuberant about it, get the parents and other kids involved in cheering on the batter and runners. Laura's kid hits the ball farther than anyone else, Stiles is totally impressed, but he won't let him run past first base, since all the other kids are only doing one base at a time (and Stiles has been yelling "Safe!" every time one of them reaches home, which the other kids started joining in on after the first few times).

It doesn't take long for all 12 of them to have a turn at bat and running the bases—the last kid does get to run them all at once—and then Stiles sends them off to collect the balls that were hit out in the field. He’s got his own glove on (he’s lucky he found the thing), and he stands at the mound next to the bucket and has them throw the balls back to him. The ones he doesn't catch he has to run after himself, and somehow the kids seem to get a kick out of watching him scramble around for them. So yeah, that takes care of his looking-like-an-idiot portion of the evening, but at least the kids are having fun, right?

Once the balls are all collected in the bucket, Stiles has all the kids sit around the pitcher's mound, and he takes a seat on it himself. "Did you all have fun today?" he asks them. He gets general affirmatives, and grins. "Awesome. I had fun too, you guys are great. I'm going to e-mail your parents about the practice schedule and when our games are and everything, but first I want to lay out some ground rules for being on this team."

"So we're on the team?" one of the kids asks. 

"That depends on whether you can follow the rules," Stiles says. "First rule is, you have to _want_ to be on the team. If you don't, that's totally cool, I'm not going to make you play. You have to want to. Second rule is to work hard and have fun. Baseball is awesome, so we have to treat it the way it deserves. That means come to practice and do your best. 

“Third rule,” he goes on, glancing at what he’d written down earlier to remember his wording, “and this is the most important one, is that we're a _team_. That means we're all friends, so we help each other out and we're not mean to each other on purpose. And if someone on the team makes you mad or does something mean, you talk to me about it, because I'm the coach. Or talk to your parents, and we'll figure it out. Okay, you got all that?"

There are fewer affirmatives this time, and some kids are nodding but looking kind of unsure, so Stiles says, "Okay, prove it: first rule?" and goes through it one more time. Once he's sure they've gotten the gist of it, he stands up and dusts off his pants. "You guys are awesome. C'mon, let's go tell your parents you made the team!"

Stiles informs the parents he'll be e-mailing them all the important info, gathers the paperwork, and tries not to collapse in a post-adrenalin heap as they all file towards their cars. Laura sends her son ahead but hangs back herself. "You're good at this," she says.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Stiles corrects. 

She grins. "And you're good at that."

"Ugh," Stiles says, eloquently. "I wish Scott was here, I'd totally make him help me with this."

"You can get some of the parents to help, you know," Laura tells him. "You could even have an official Assistant Coach."

"Are you volunteering?" Stiles asks, hopefully.

"Nope." She shakes her head. "I can't, with my schedule. I'll try to make it to all the games, but I can't commit to practices."

"I feel weird around the other parents," Stiles says, maybe the slightest hint of a whine in the words. "They're all older than me and are probably all talking now about how their kid's coach is basically a high schooler."

"You know, the only way to stop feeling weird around them is to actually spend time around them," Laura points out. "When you send out your e-mail ask for volunteers. You can at least get some help with clean-up after practice, and if you don't assign someone for kid-wrangling assistance, you're going to have parents competing for it when they think someone's getting out of line."

Stiles scoffs at that. "These kids are awesome, I'm not going to have any problems with them."

Laura grins, and it's a little bit scary. "Oh, you just wait. But thanks again for doing this. I'll help when I can, but seriously, find some volunteers. And don't forget to tell everyone pizza's on us after games, win or lose."

"Right," Stiles says with a nod. "And it's free for me all the time, right? Because I am totally planning on making use of that. Is it just pizza, or is it like, the whole menu?"

Laura rolls her eyes. "It's whatever the person in charge of the kitchen feels like making for you, which will probably depend on how busy the place is. And whether Derek's in one of his experimental moods and makes you taste-test."

Stiles is about to say something to that, possibly something incriminating or just really lame, but Laura lifts her head slightly and then starts talking again. "Anyway, I should get going, the kid's gonna start chewing on the upholstery if I don't get some food in him soon. Have fun putting the equipment away." With another quick grin and a wave, she walks off towards the parking lot.

"Joke's on you!" Stiles calls after her. "I _will_ have fun putting the equipment away!"

About two seconds after he says it, Stiles wonders if that could be another shitty euphemism, and decides not to think too hard about it as he cleans up after the kids. And it isn't _fun_ , but it's not bad, either. It does make Stiles miss Scott, even though they never actually played baseball together. It would just be cool if he were around. 

On the way home, Stiles debates about stopping in at the pizzeria for dinner. He even drives past it, but it seems kinda crowded, and Stiles is pretty gross from tryouts, and maybe Derek only works the lunch shift, anyway. He heads home instead.

—

The next day Stiles works a full shift at the library, but he's struck a deal with the head librarian that he gets an hour for lunch in exchange for dusting the gross cobwebs out of the high corners in the building, so at two he heads straight over to Halefire Pizza. It's probably not a good time to go, but it's the only time he has available so he's not missing the chance. Even if he doesn't get to chat with Derek, he'll still get a good lunch out of it.

And yeah, the place is pretty crowded. It's the last week before school starts, so there's quite a few families and groups of teenagers there enjoying the end of the summer. Stiles doesn't want to take one of the empty tables that could be used for actual paying customers, so instead he sits at the bar and hopes he won't have to explain his free-food status to whoever comes to take his order.

'Whoever' ends up being a vaguely harried-looking Cora—'vaguely' because the Hales, as a family, seem relatively unflappable—suddenly appearing at the bar next to Stiles. It's a relief; he went to school with Cora. "Do you know what you want?" she asks.

"Um," Stiles says, blinking at the bluntness of the question. But maybe she just doesn't want to waste pleasantries on freeloaders. "I'm not—is Derek working today?" He has _no idea_ why he just asked that.

"Yes, he is, and no, I'm not giving him your number," Cora says, somewhere between bored and impatient. "Now are you going to order or not?"

"I, uh," Stiles says, "I'll have whatever is easiest to make, I guess? Or if this is a bad time, I could go somewhere else for lunch…"

Cora looks at him then—weird, because he could have sworn she was looking at him before, but this is definitely different—and narrows her eyes slightly. "You're Stiles," she says, finally.

"Yeah, I—wait, you _just_ realized that? We went to school together!"

"Did we?" Cora asks, tilting her head slightly like she's trying to remember.

"Yes!" Stiles says, incredulous. "I mean, I was a year behind you, but still."

"Hmm," she says, and shrugs dismissively. "I'll go tell Derek to make you whatever, then. What do you want to drink?"

"Uh, water's fine," Stiles says, not wanting to ask for more from her, for some reason. As she's walking away another thought occurs to him—"Wait so that's just how you treat random customers?"

She might be too far away to hear him; she doesn't acknowledge the question either way.

It's not Cora who brings Stiles his water. One of the more-harried-looking servers currently working the floor has that honor—he sets the glass down and takes off again the next instant. Stiles occupies himself with sipping at his water and messing around on his phone for the next little while. He’s obviously not high-priority, which makes sense, considering he's not actually paying, or anything.

Eventually, though, a pizza appears in front of him, as if from nowhere, and before Stiles can even look up to see where it came from Cora is flopping onto the seat next to him, beer in hand.

"I remember you now," she says, and the pizza smells _amazing_ but Stiles doesn't take his eyes off Cora. He doesn't know much about her, but if she's anything like Laura he probably shouldn't let his guard down. "You're that geeky kid Erica had a crush on for a while."

Stiles is distracted from being indignant (because A, _geeky_? and B, _he's only one year younger than Cora_ ) by the revelation that someone actually had a crush on him in high school. Even the person he dated for all of five minutes never had a crush on him. (His longtime friend Heather—the dating was a halfhearted try to salvage their failed attempt to have sex one time. The dating didn't work out any better. Heather got married right out of college and the story of their non-romance made for great conversation at the reception, though. That was a fun night.)

"Erica? Your…" Stiles starts, then trails off because he doesn't actually know how to finish that sentence. Whenever Laura talks about them it's just ‘Cora and Erica,’ so while Stiles assumes they're _together_ he doesn't know the official label.

"My Erica, right," Cora says, with an eyebrow raise that could indicate amusement, warning, or just her opinion of Stiles's intelligence. 

It's unhelpful, really.

Stiles chooses to ignore it. "She went to school with us?"

Cora's expression changes at that, though whether it gets more or less dangerous is anyone's guess. "Yeah. Eat your pizza, freeloader. Derek's _experimenting_ again." 

Stiles looks at the pizza properly for the first time. It looks normal enough—sausage, onions, olives. Stiles tries not to be disappointed, because he totally wasn't hoping Derek would remember his topping preferences.

"Looks normal to me," Stiles says before taking a bite. It's hot, but predictably tastes pretty much like perfection. "Tastes normal too," he says through a mouthful.

"Yeah, I don't know," Cora says, finally popping the cap on her beer. "He changes recipes constantly and expects anyone to tell the difference. I'm supposed to get your opinion on whatever the hell he's changed this time. I'm taking a break while you decide."

The restaurant hasn't gotten any less busy since Stiles has been waiting, but he decides not to mention that. "And for a second there I thought the beer was for me," he says instead. "And the pizza's fucking awesome, whatever Derek did to it. You wanna try it?"

"I don't eat pizza," Cora says, then darts her gaze over towards the window to the kitchen. "Say that a little louder, I don't think he heard you."

Stiles forgoes being offended, _again_ —because he didn't even say that loudly, what the hell, he knows there're families in here—to focus on the atrocity of Cora's first statement. "You don't eat _pizza_?"

Cora rolls her eyes, a gesture Stiles is very familiar with in her older sister. "Not usually. Not all of us are pizza freaks practically married to the restaurant," she says, her voice rising a little as she goes. 

Stiles wonders if she's talking about Derek, and is immediately offended, because there's nothing wrong with being a pizza freak if it results in the pizza he's eating right now. He swallows a mouthful before arguing the point. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with liking your job." 

"No," Cora agrees between drinks of her beer. "I like my job. Laura likes her job. Derek freaking _lives_ for his job. He's here _all the time_. He's only supposed to work the lunch shift, and Mom takes over for dinner, but he _doesn't leave_. Drives her nuts because he won't get out of her kitchen."

This is obviously an old argument, or at least an old annoyance, or something, and Stiles really has no place in it but he's feeling weirdly protective of Derek right now. Possibly because he's eating the results of that obsession and they are quite tasty, but also probably because Stiles is seeing unwelcome parallels to his own life right now, what with being a little… _over-enthusiastic_ about his own parent's line of work.

Also there's that whole high-school-crush-coming-back-in-full-force thing. _Whatever_.

"Isn't it better to have more people helping, though?" he asks, and tries really hard to sound nonchalant and not at all like he's arguing passionately on behalf of some guy he's talked to like once.

That gets him a look, and it's also familiar courtesy of one Laura Hale. Stiles wonders idly if Derek shares his sisters' expressions. "Helping, maybe, but not having two people who think they're in charge. Especially since Derek and Mom have different kitchen styles, so they're always contradicting each other and trying not to argue—but then they're just alike enough to constantly get in each other's way. It's ridiculous. _Ridiculous_." She says the last word louder, with another, more pointed look in the direction of the kitchen. "And it stresses Mom out which stresses _everyone_ out and maybe someone needs a _hobby_ that isn't their career."

Stiles just blinks and doesn't know what to say anymore. He's still on Derek's side in all this, but maybe he should pick his battles. Or something. And also eat his lunch.

"Well, he makes some damn good pizza," Stiles says, sort of weakly, and goes back to eating.

"It'd be kind of pathetic if he didn't," Cora says. "Screw it, I'm getting another beer. You want one?"

"Um, no thanks," Stiles says as Cora slides around the edge of the bar. "I have to get back to work soon—which, aren't you on a break?"

"Until I finish this beer, yeah." She comes back around, fresh bottle in hand, and resumes her seat. "So how's the coaching going?"

Stiles really isn't sure what to make of this continued conversation; this is the first time he's actually talked to Cora since he used to eat at Halefire Pizza in high school. And then that was only when she was working and waiting tables. 

Now that he thinks of it, she didn't seem to like it any more then than she seems to now.

Maybe he's just a convenient excuse for a break. Or she needed to vent about Derek. To a relative stranger. Or maybe she's gauging his suitability as a coach for her nephew? 

"Fine, I guess," Stiles says with a shrug. He only has two little pieces of pizza left. It's sad. "I mean, all we've had is tryouts. The kids were pretty awesome, but I'm not too sure about their parents yet…Laura says I need to ask for volunteers to help out with practices and stuff, but like, they're all _parents_ , it's weird."

"Why do you need help? They're just a bunch of kids."

"Right?" Stiles says, savoring every bite of his second-to-last slice even as he mourns its loss. "I don't know, Laura says I should get an assistant coach or something. But she won't do it because of her schedule, it sucks. I don't know how to talk to _parents_. And the kids seem fine so far, but like, what the hell do I know about kids, so."

Cora side-eyes him. "And Laura wanted you to coach the team, why?" Stiles gives her a 'you got me' shrug, mouth full of pizza. "Well, don't ask me to help. I have classes in the evenings. That's when practices are, right?"

"Yeah," Stiles says with a nod. "Late enough for the kids who have after-school crap. And I figured none of you guys were available or Laura would have been bribing you to coach, not me."

Cora lets out a small chuckle. "What'd she bribe you with?"

"Pizza, duh," Stiles says, holding up his last slice. He won't mention the internship; not after Cora's rant earlier.

Cora starts to tilt her head in acknowledgement of that obvious fact, but her expression changes midway to a smile that could possibly be called sly. Or just generally worrisome. "You sure it was the pizza and not the pizza-maker?"

Stiles can't help it; he blushes. He doesn't think he's given a single indication that he's interested in more than Derek's culinary skills, but maybe he slipped up somewhere. Wouldn't that just _suck_. "Considering last week was the first time I'd ever exchanged more than five words with Derek, pretty sure it was the pizza."

Cora looks like she's trying to come up with something incriminating or just plain embarrassing in response to that, but then her eyes go wide. "Oh shit, Derek!"

"What?" Stiles says, a slight panic rising as he looks around, worried that Derek has suddenly appeared behind him or something. Stiles doesn't seem him anywhere, though.

" _Derek_ can help with the team!" Cora goes on, and now Stiles is confused, disbelieving, and panicked for a whole different reason. "That's freaking perfect. He isn't _supposed_ to work evenings, and making him help would at least get him out of the damn restaurant for a couple nights a week. Why didn't Laura think of that?"

"Cora." The word isn't yelled, but it carries, and they both turn to see that now Derek has appeared—in the window to the kitchen. "Quit harassing Stiles and get back to work."

"I don't actually work here, you know," she says, but she does get up. Stiles notices her beer is empty now anyway. "Take your plate to the window when you're done, freeloader," she adds before walking away with her empty bottle.

Stiles, in his eternal quest for self-sabotage, shoves nearly the whole last slice of pizza in his mouth and jumps up with his plate so he can get to the window before Derek walks away again.

"You didn't actually have to do that," Derek says when he gets close, "but thanks. And sorry about Cora. She's only here today because we're short-staffed, but as you can see she'd rather harass customers than serve them."

Stiles shrugs and tries to swallow his pizza without choking. "Nah, it's cool. I'm not even a real customer, anyway. Sorry for stopping by when it's so busy, though. I'll try to schedule my lunch break better next time."

"It's usually quieter when we first open," Derek says. "So how was the pizza?"

"Dude, it was awesome," Stiles says, enthusiastically. "Like, Cora said you were trying something out and I have no idea what it was, but it tasted great."

Derek smiles, just a little, just enough for Stiles to remember that smile _does funny things to him_. "I'm working on a new spice mix for the sausage. I thought there might be too much fennel."

"I have no idea what that is, but no, it was perfect." Stiles resolutely _does not make_ a sausage joke.

The smiles grows a little, like Derek is amused by Stiles's culinary ineptitude. Or maybe he finds it charming. Stiles likes that better. "Good to know," Derek says. "Get here earlier next time." 

He picks up the cup and plate Stiles had set on the window ledge, and Stiles realizes that's his cue. "Right, I'll do that, uh—keep up the good work, making delicious food and all."

Derek turns then so Stiles can't see his expression—possibly for the best, considering how _lame_ Stiles just sounded—but he raises a hand in a slight wave before he walks away.

Overall, Stiles is counting his lunch break as a win.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly early update this week. :)

The next morning Stiles is at the station, sipping coffee—his own, that he bought and brought in with him, for himself and no one else—and trying to convince the deputy at the front desk to let him have a peek at one of his case files when Laura walks in the front door. He looks up and starts to wave until he sees her face.

"What the hell did you say to my sister?" are the first words out of her mouth, and Stiles decidedly does not flinch. When he glances back at the desk he sees that the deputy has _abandoned him_. And taken the case files, dammit.

"Um," Stiles says, trying to remember what he said to Cora—did he insult her or something? He's pretty sure she was the rude one in that exchange, actually. 

"Why did you tell her it'd be a good idea for _Derek_ to be the assistant coach?"

"I didn't!" Stiles says, affronted at the accusation. "That was _her_ idea, okay! All I said was _you_ said I needed to ask for volunteers but you couldn't help because of your work schedule, and _Cora_ said that Derek is supposed to be free in the evenings so he should do it! And something about how he never gets out of the restaurant!"

"Yes," Laura says, like this should be _obvious_ , "because Derek interacts with ingredients far better than he interacts with people. And kids! Derek can't handle kids!"

"Why are you yelling at me about this!" Stiles is only yelling because _she's_ yelling, okay.

"Because I asked _you_ to coach the team! If I wanted Derek to do it I would have coerced _him_ , not you! Derek doesn't know anything about baseball. Or kids. Dammit, Cora!"

"I don't know anything about kids either!" Stiles adds as a last argument—although he still doesn't actually know what they're arguing _about_ —as Laura whips out her phone and angrily presses buttons on it.

"Stiles says it was your idea!" she says a few seconds later, and yep, there's his cue again. Stiles sidles over to the door, hoping Laura is too preoccupied to notice his escape. He manages to break free of the station just as she's saying, "I know Mom wants him out of the restaurant, but—"

Stiles makes it to his Jeep, deciding maybe he'll have better luck interning in the afternoon. When he looks at his phone he sees it's only nine; way too early to head over to Halefire…but there's a bookstore next to it that opens at nine. Maybe. Worth checking out, at least.

And yes, Stiles knows he's being a little silly about this. It's not like Derek said 'come in tomorrow,' but Stiles can't help it, it's _exciting_ to know that Derek wants him to come back at all. Even if it's just to sample pizza and not for anything romantic. Pizza is still good.

When he gets to the right street Stiles has a momentary dilemma about parking. There's plenty of space in front of the restaurant, but if Derek happens to look outside and see Stiles's Jeep almost two hours before the place even opens, that will probably look a little too overeager. In front of the bookstore poses the same problem.

Stiles parks down the street, the same place he did during his first trip there the week before, and finishes his coffee while he contemplates just going home for a couple hours. That would probably be the smart thing to do.

But he's here already. And he should probably get, like, a notebook or something to take to the team's first practice tonight. Also a pen. Totally legit reasons for being in a bookstore!

So when his coffee's done he gets out of the Jeep, tosses the cup, and walks towards the store.

Except that Derek Hale is standing at the door to Halefire Pizza.

"Hey," Stiles says, startled, when the door opens as he approaches and he sees who opened it. He does not add 'wow you look good today,' but he thinks it _really loud_.

"I didn't mean this early," Derek says, while looking really good. He's wearing the same restaurant t-shirt as the last two times Stiles has seen him, but even as part of Stiles's brain is wondering how many of those shirts Derek actually owns another part is thinking they must have picked out the shirts with Derek in mind—while yet another part is thinking _Stiles you sound like a high-schooler he's just a hot guy in a tight shirt get the fuck over it_.

"Yeah, no, I know," Stiles says, trying not to sound embarrassed because he has a totally legit reason for being here! "I was just uh, going to the bookstore. Need to get some stuff for practice tonight."

Derek raises an eyebrow. "You're going to get something at a bookstore for baseball practice?"

"Um, yes," Stiles says, trying to sound like he has any clue what he's talking about. "Wow, Laura was right, you really don't know anything about baseball, do you?"

There's a hint of that smile again, and Stiles smiles back without meaning to. He can't help it. 

"You hungry?" Derek asks. 

"Usually," Stiles says, and he thinks he sees the smile widen before Derek turns away.

"Come on," he says, holding the door for Stiles. "Unless you think they're going to run out of whatever you need at the bookstore."

"Uh, no, I'm pretty sure they won't," Stiles says as he catches the door and follows Derek in.

Stiles has never been at the pizzeria when it wasn't open—duh, why would he be—and it's weird how different it is, even from when there's just a few people. All the chairs are upside-down on the tables, presumably from cleaning the floors, and the place is completely silent save from Stiles and Derek's footsteps.

"How early do you get here?" Stiles asks, suddenly curious.

"I'm always here," Derek says, and at first Stiles thinks he's making a joke about what his sisters said, but then he continues. "My apartment's above the restaurant."

Stiles blinks, because "Dude, really? That's kind of cool. But also it's no wonder you never get out."

Derek pauses at the door to the kitchen to turn around and gives Stiles a _look_. Stiles isn't sure if it's supposed to be threatening or just flatly unamused because mostly it's just hot.

This is a _problem_ , _dam_ mit.

"Hey, your sisters said it, not me." Stiles holds his hands up in defense of his own innocence. "No judging here."

Derek rolls his eyes, and oh yes, apparently that's a Hale family trait, and leads the way into the kitchen. Stiles follows, heartbeat picking up a little because _kitchen fantasies he's totally not going to think about right now_. Fuck.

"Did you have breakfast?"

"Huh?" Stiles asks, because Derek's ass is distracting, Stiles is never going to survive this, he's going to end up impaling himself on a sharp kitchen instrument or tripping over his own feet and braining himself on a fridge or something because he has fully reverted to flaily high school crush mode, he is going to break something and Derek will hate him forever, _God_. "Cereal," he adds when his brain catches up. "I had some cereal with my dad before he went to work a couple hours ago."

"Cereal isn't breakfast," Derek says, and it sounds like there's more to that, and Stiles wonders if he could get Derek worked up into an angry rant about cereal one day. It's something to consider, especially since Stiles vehemently disagrees with him.

"And pizza is?" Stiles asks instead, because right now he's too giddy at the thought of Derek making him breakfast to argue.

Unless this is, like, cold leftover pizza, which, while still tasty, wouldn't be something to get too excited over.

"Sometimes," Derek says, walking over to…something that may or may not be a refrigerator. "Not today."

"Good to know you at least eat pizza, then." Stiles desperately wants to say something about _Derek making him breakfast_ but at the same time he's afraid if he draws attention to it, Derek will think Stiles thinks it's a bigger deal than Derek intends it to be and everything will get awkward fast.

Derek huffs as he opens the—yep, that's a fridge. "This would probably be the wrong career choice if I didn't. Cora only doesn't eat it because she tells her clients not to and doesn't want to set a bad example."

Cora is, from what Stiles can remember of what Laura has said, a personal trainer or fitness coach or something. Who also runs women's self-defense classes, though she probably doesn't tell the people in her classes what to eat.

"Ah," Stiles says. "I guess that's…responsible." She's seriously missing out, but whatever. "So, speaking of your sisters. Would it be really rude of me to say that they're kind of, uh…"

"Annoying?" Derek supplies as he sets stuff down on a counter—stuff that includes eggs and what seems to be bacon? Stiles really hopes it's bacon.

"I think I was going to say intense," Stiles says, because he isn't really sure. Not annoying, though; Laura's pretty cool when she's not yelling at Stiles for things he didn't do, and Cora was alright to talk to. 

Derek chuckles slightly at that, but whether it's in agreement or disbelief Stiles has no idea. "I heard Laura scared you off this morning," Derek says.

"She did not _scare me off_ ," Stiles says with a scoff. "I just didn't want to stand around and get yelled at when I didn't do anything wrong. And how did you know that, anyway? I came straight over here after I left the station."

"You mean the bookstore," Derek says, and Stiles can only see him at an angle but that's a freaking _smirk_ on his face, Stiles can just tell.

"I mean I was heading straight to the bookstore before you ambushed me and lured me in with the promise of food," Stiles counters. "But anyway, so that means Cora talked to you about the, um. Coaching thing? Because that was really not my idea, Cora just said it out of nowhere."

"I don't know anything about baseball," Derek says as he goes about cooking. Bread has appeared on the counter, and blueberries, and—

"Are you making French toast?" Stiles asks, because seriously, he has to know.

Derek shrugs. "The bread's getting old, I need to do something with it. I was planning on making it anyway before you showed up."

"Dude. You know nothing you are saying is discouraging me from finding some excuse to be hovering around the front door some other morning. You do not get rid of a Stiles by feeding him."

"Laura doomed us all on that one already," Derek says, except it has to be a joke because Stiles hasn't actually done anything that bad yet. Right? "But I get it if you don't want me."

_What_. "What?" Did Derek actually just say that? Did Stiles miss something? Did he get distracted again _and somehow miss Derek offering himself up in some way_?

"To help with the team," Derek says, and oh God, okay, Stiles's heart can calm down now. "Because I don't know anything about baseball."

"Yeah, I caught that in Laura's ranting," Stiles says. "She also said you're bad with kids. But wait, what—you mean you actually want to help? I thought that was just…you know, Cora. Laura made it seem like…"

"Like I can't function outside of a kitchen?" Derek offers, dry. 

"I didn't say—"

"My sisters like to argue," Derek says, laying strips of bacon in a pan. "I give them something to argue about. And I can't remember whose side I'm supposed to be on this time, but—our mom liked the idea. Or she seemed to, at least."

"Oh," Stiles says. He doesn't know what else to say. Stiles likes to think he would've done anything his mom asked of him, ever, but that might just be because she's gone. He really has no way to know what she would have thought of the choices he's made, or how he would react to her opinion.

There's silence for a while after that, but it's not bad. Derek's cooking, Stiles is leaning against a bare patch of wall he managed to find—keeping in mind Derek's 'don't touch anything' from the week before—watching him cook. The bacon smells amazing. Everything's good.

At one point Derek makes a trip back to the fridge to put stuff away, and asks Stiles what he wants to drink. When he comes back he puts the food on plates, and it—well, Stiles hasn't tasted any of it yet, but Derek's presentation skills, at least, go beyond pizza. He takes the stuff he cooked on over to the sink, and Stiles decides he should help out a little maybe.

"Where are we eating?" he asks, stepping forward to pick up the plates.

Derek glances back at him, then inclines his head towards a small counter-height table and a couple bar stools off in the corner of the kitchen. Stiles goes as directed, and when he turns around he sees Derek heading over with their drinks and some silverware.

"So, uh, thanks for this," Stiles says, only a little awkwardly, as Derek pulls one of the plates (the one with only two pieces of French toast that Stiles had been hoping, but not assuming, would be Derek's) over and sits down. Now that it's safe to do so Stiles sits too and grabs the other plate. "It looks awesome."

Besides the blueberry-maple-syrup-glaze, or whatever, Derek also sprinkled some powdered sugar on top. It looks like some fancy breakfast at a high-end cafe, not something you'd find in a pizza place.

"You sound surprised," Derek says, cutting into his toast. "Thought all I could make was pizza?"

Stiles laughs at that, and refrains from taking a bite of bacon before speaking. He did learn some things in college. "Dude, with your pizza that would totally be justified. You don't _need_ to know how to make anything else."

Derek's looking down at his plate so Stiles can't see his expression that well, but he looks like he doesn't know whether to scoff or smile. 

"Which is why," Stiles goes on to say, cutting a corner off his first piece of toast, "you totally don't have to help with the team if you don't want to. Your pizza is pretty much the reason I agreed to coach; you're already doing more than enough. Especially with the breakfast, dude, this is above and beyond."

Derek's eyebrows furrow a little at that, and Stiles thinks maybe he said something wrong, but before he can try to fix it he actually puts the bite of food in his mouth and forgets what he was thinking. 

"Oh my God, Derek," he says before he can help himself. He finishes the bite and finds Derek looking at him, almost a little guardedly. "Okay," Stiles says, waving his fork a little and perhaps unconsciously pointing it at Derek, "is _everything_ you make this good, or, like, is French toast actually the only breakfast food you can cook competently?"

Derek smirks. "I made bacon, too."

"Yes, I noticed that," Stiles says, picking up a slice and waving it almost accusingly before taking a bite. Then his face does something he can't describe because _this is possibly the best bacon he's ever had_. "Nope, you've completely screwed yourself over here," Stiles goes on as he eagerly digs further into his breakfast, "feeding me fancy French toast and this— _whatever_ this bacon is, seriously, man, I don't know if you were _trying_ to impress me but you have definitely succeeded."

"Why would I need to impress you?” Derek says. “You're already coaching the team, it's not like you needed any extra incentive."

Stiles can't help it, he's a little disappointed and—okay, it makes his heart hurt just a bit to hear that, because, well, he really wanted Derek to want to impress him. For personal reasons, not coaching-related ones.

He's given time to think of a response, though, by the giant piece of bread in his mouth, so when he's done chewing he has a comeback ready. "So you're not just being nice to me because Laura told you to, then?" He hopes he says it offhandedly enough, because it's actually something that's worried him a little.

Derek just looks at him for a moment before going back to his food, and for a second Stiles thinks he isn't going to answer, but then he does. "Laura didn't tell me anything," he says, before reaching for his glass of apple juice. "My mother, who is also my boss, told me to feed you when you come in. That's all."

And that tells Stiles precisely nothing, which, as he narrows his eyes a little at Derek, he's pretty sure Derek knows. He didn't at all answer the question of whether he invited Stiles in for breakfast as a favor to the guy coaching his nephew's baseball team or just because he wanted to have breakfast with Stiles. And Stiles can't actually _ask_ that question.

"So," Stiles ventures, because why the hell not, "if I were to wander in again tomorrow at about, say, nine o'clock…"

"You'd find a locked door," Derek says, smirking again.

Stiles shoves food in his mouth to keep from looking pleased at the snarky response. "I'm working tomorrow morning anyway," he says with a shrug between bites.

They fall into another silence then, but Stiles sees Derek glance at a clock on the wall and realizes that oh right, the restaurant's opening in like an hour so they can't really linger over breakfast. So he busies himself with eating and not thinking about the _meaning_ behind Derek making him (possibly) non-coaching-deal-related food.

He can obsess over it later. And also get Scott's opinion.

When they're both finished Derek takes Stiles's plate and heads back towards the sink. Stiles follows along, wondering if he should leave before he's asked to.

"You want some help with those?" he offers when Derek starts washing the few dishes, both because it's only polite and because it gives him an excuse to hang around a little longer.

Derek shakes his head, though. "They won't take very long."

"Yeah, I guess," Stiles says, rocking back on his heels. "But I feel like I should do something."

Derek glances back at him, then nods in a general direction that means nothing to Stiles. "Spray cleaner and cleaning rags in that cabinet. You can wipe down the counter and the table."

"Okay," Stiles agrees easily. It's sort of pathetic how much he doesn't want to leave.

"Laura was right," Derek says, out of nowhere, while Stiles is cleaning the counter.

"I'm sure she would agree with you," Stiles replies, looking over. Derek's still facing away, washing dishes. "But uh, what about?"

"Me," Derek says with a slight shrug. His shoulders look really good in that t-shirt. "And baseball, and kids."

"Oh," Stiles says, and he's not sure why Derek's bringing this up again, since Stiles already told him he was off the hook. "Dude, I told you you don't need to—"

"So I get it if you don't want me to help—"

"Wait, what?" Stiles interrupts, when he hears what Derek is saying. "When did I say I didn't want you to help? I didn't say that." He abandons his counter-cleaning duty and walks over to stand next to the sink, so he can see Derek's face. "I said you shouldn't feel like you _have_ to help, but if you _want_ to, that's— _do_ you want to?"

Derek doesn't answer at first, just frowns a little at his dishes. "My mom thinks it's a good idea," he finally says, and Stiles wonders if they're at the stage in their…friendship? where arm-patting is allowed.

"Dude, I get that," he says, sympathetically. "I so get that. And I would—" _love for you to help_ , he doesn't say—"really appreciate the help, don't get me wrong. But it's…I mean, it's up to you, Derek. If you want to help, that's awesome, first practice is tonight. If you don't, cool, I'll still be seeing you for lunch more often than you'd probably like."

Derek finishes up the dish he's washing, then turns to Stiles and crosses his arms. Stiles's heartbeat picks up again. And he'd been doing so well, too.

"How often do you work in the mornings?"

"Um," Stiles says, and blinks. What? Why does he keep feeling like he's missing something when talking to Derek? "A few days a week? Maybe more now that practice is starting and I can't work late. Why?"

"A trade," Derek says. "I'll help with the team if you come by here on your mornings off."

Stiles's mornings off are generally spent at the station, but he can maybe afford to start spending them with Derek instead. Especially since he now has Laura's help on the internship front. But this still doesn't actually make any sense. Is Derek just…really really lonely? "I know I'm good company, but—"

"Not for your company," Derek says, which, ouch, "for your mouth."

Stiles _literally actually_ chokes on air. Like, he's just standing there, and then suddenly he's not breathing, he's choking, and he has to cough, and then cough some more, and he's tempted to shove Derek out of the way and get some water from the sink, but he manages to get it under control in time.

" _What_?" he asks, strained, his eyes watering, his face probably completely red.

If Derek was at all concerned about Stiles _possibly dying from innuendo_ , he's not showing it. Instead he's managing to look both uncomfortable and amused at the same time, it's actually kind of impressive. Like, he's smirking while blushing and avoiding eye contact.

"No one is around in the mornings, which is when I work with recipes," he says, while continuing to avoid eye contact. "My family is tired of taste-testing, anyway. And I can't ask employees because they just get nervous and don't give honest answers."

" _Oh_ ," Stiles says, and he's not sure if he's disappointed that Derek is just interested in his taste buds and not the more fun things his mouth is capable of. "You want me to taste-test stuff for you?"

"You'd have to be trained first," Derek says, looking at him again, eyes narrowed slightly, consideringly. "You can't give me useful feedback if you don't even know what fennel is."

"Hey now," Stiles says, in a put-on defensive tone, "I don't have to know what fennel is to know if sausage is good."

Derek just looks at him for a moment, and all at once Stiles feels himself blush and wants to say _you started it_ but instead coughs again—his throat is still a little scratchy—and says, "So, what time should I be here?"

"Seven would be good," Derek says. "Six would be better."

Stiles feels his mouth hanging open. "The restaurant doesn't even open until eleven!"

"And I'm here every morning at five-thirty," Derek says, the _what's your point_ implied.

"You live here!"

"I'm not offering you a place to sleep," Derek says, and Stiles can't help it, he laughs.

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says. "I can try to be here at seven. You know," he goes on, because, well, he apparently really likes Derek (dammit), "the library doesn't open until ten, and I don't have to be _there_ until it opens, so…even on mornings I do work, I could stop by. If you wanted."

He hopes that didn't sound as obvious and desperate as he thinks it may have sounded.

"But practice is only twice a week," Derek replies, like he _totally doesn't get_ why Stiles would want to spend additional time with him.

"Yeah, but _you_ need training, too," Stiles counters, a smile tugging at his mouth because he has good ideas sometimes. "If you really don't know anything about baseball, I, obviously, will have to teach you."

Derek furrows his eyebrows at this, and it's kind of adorable, whatever. "This isn't Cora's idea to get me out of the kitchen more, is it?"

"What are you talking about, the whole thing was Cora's idea." Wow, Derek's as paranoid about Stiles wanting to spend time with him as Stiles was about Derek wanting to feed him breakfast. "But no, she didn't ask me to keep you occupied outside of practice—" and he is _not_ thinking about how that sounds— "you said this is a trade. So, you want to train me, I'm training you, too."

Derek leans back a little, like he's trying to decide whether Stiles is being diabolically manipulative, or something. "Fine," he says after a moment.

Stiles grins and holds out his hand, which is totally not just an excuse to touch Derek. (That is a lie.) "Deal?"

The handshake is nice, and strong, and Derek's fingers aren't even dry or wrinkly from washing dishes, not that Stiles notices those sorts of things, come on. (That was not a lie until this particular handshake.) "Deal," Derek says, and his expression is weirdly solemn until it changes to something pointed. "Now get out of my kitchen, I have a restaurant to run."

"Dude," Stiles says, but he's still grinning a little, and as Derek turns away to do whatever restaurant-running things he needs to do, it looks like that small smile of his is starting to come back.

"Thanks again for breakfast," Stiles says as he heads for the exit. He's halfway out the door when something hits him and he turns back. "Hey, you wanna give me your phone number? In case something comes up with practice, or whatever."

"Get it from Laura," Derek says, without even looking at him. "I'm already behind schedule."

"Okay." Not an ideal answer, but hey, Stiles still gets the number. "See you later—oh, do you want a ride?"

"Little busy here, Stiles," Derek says, voice slightly curt, and Stiles shouldn't find that attractive, probably, but he does. Derek's very _serious business_ about his pizza. It's cool.

"Right, kitchen to run, got it, leaving now." Stiles smiles a bit through the words, but he does leave. One of the employees happens to be walking in the front door as he heads for it—the same girl he talked to the week before. She gives him a quizzical smile, but he just grins, says "Good morning," and goes out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another early update!

"Scoooooooooott," Stiles says as soon as the phone is answered.

"Hey Stiles," says a voice that is—not Scott.

"Oh, uh, hey Allison." Stiles shouldn't be embarrassed, but he kind of is. It's mostly the surprise…and the fact that now he feels silly about calling his best friend to, essentially, gush about a boy. Allison would _understand_ , almost definitely, but—Stiles didn't plan on telling her about it. "Is Scott around?"

Probably he should ask, like, how she's doing, or at least say good morning, but again—surprise and embarrassment.

"He's in the shower," Allison answers. "Do you need me to get him?"

Part of Stiles wants to say yes, but he refrains. Even if this is _totally_ a big enough deal. "No, it's, uh, it's fine. Just tell him to call me?"

"Sure thing," she replies, and Stiles can hear the smile in her voice. "Oh, hey, have you started the coaching gig yet?"

"Yeah, tryouts were Tuesday, first practice is today. And it's not a 'gig,' I'm not getting paid. Except in pizza."

"From, um, Halefire, right? Scott's taken me there before. If pizza is your payment, that's pretty good pizza to get paid with."

Stiles laughs. "You're telling me." Except, he really wants to be telling Scott—about all the new _side benefits_ of his coaching job. "So, uh, what's up with you?"

"Not much," Allison says, and Stiles can imagine her shrug. "Have to work later today. Scott's off, though, so he'll be able to talk to you for as long as you need."

That's actually awesome, but Stiles isn't going to admit that. "Cool, cool. You guys have any big plans for the weekend?"

"Not really," she says. "I'm working, so it's hard to plan much when our schedules don't match up."

"Yeah I get that."

And then the awkward silence begins. Stiles hasn't really spent a lot of in-person time with Allison, and almost all of that was with Scott, too, so they've never really figured out how to be casual with each other on their own. Assuming Scott and Allison move to Beacon Hills when Scott's done with school, or Stiles can bring himself to leave his dad again and move wherever Scott is (and Stiles does not like envisioning a future in which neither of these things actually happen), Stiles is confident he and Allison will figure out their groove eventually. 

But uh, right now he just wants to get off the phone. Luckily, Allison seems to, too. "Well, I'll tell Scott you called," she says, rescuing them both from any attempt to further the conversation.

"Yeah, thanks," Stiles says, with relief. "Bye, Allison."

"Bye, Stiles," she says, and that's the end of that.

So Stiles is sitting in his Jeep without having gotten to verbally flail at Scott and with a choice to make: does he go back to the Sheriff's Department and risk the misplaced wrath of Deputy Hale, or does he forget interning for now and go home instead, which will probably end in more personal time with thoughts of Derek, who he will be seeing again this afternoon?

Despite it being obviously the wrong choice he's about to go home anyway until he remembers he needs to get Derek's number from Laura. Which means facing her possible wrath in person or her possible avoidance via text. And he really, really wants that phone number. So. To the station it is.

—

He brings Laura coffee. He still owes her for helping with tryouts, and he also just doesn't want her to yell at him anymore. He knows how she takes her coffee, not because he's ever gotten it for her before but because he pays attention, so he stops on the way to get it. When he gets to the station he makes a beeline for her desk—okay, it's kind of a very wary beeline—to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.

Laura eyes the cup of coffee now sitting on her desk. "Did Derek tell you to bring me coffee?"

"Oh my God, are _all_ of you paranoid?" Stiles asks in exasperation. Nevermind that he was suspicious of Derek being nice to him, too. "And how did you even know I talked to Derek?"

"You'll find, Stiles," she says, picking up the cup and actually _sniffing_ it, like she thinks Stiles put something weird in it, "that news travels fast in my family."

"Right," Stiles says, because whatever, it's not like it matters that Derek was too busy to keep talking to Stiles but apparently took the time to talk to his sister. "So, uh, I'm supposed to get his number from you?"

Laura raises her eyebrow behind her cup, and Stiles feels himself getting warm. Which is stupid, it's not like he's getting Derek's number for a _date_ , or anything. Then she holds her hand out, and it takes Stiles a second and a half to realize she wants his phone.

"Are you not mad at me anymore?" he hears himself ask as she puts in the number.

"I wasn't mad at you to begin with," she says without looking up. "Sorry about the yelling. I was just—Derek's _happy_ at the restaurant, and no one seems to get that. Especially Cora."

"She seemed more worried about your mom than Derek, to me," Stiles says before thinking maybe he shouldn't.

"That's because she's better at showing annoyance than concern," Laura says, handing the phone back with a smile. "And in that way, she's exactly like Derek."

Stiles takes his phone, resists the desperate urge to stare happily at Derek's number, and instead slides it into his pocket while keeping his eyes on Laura. "I'm beginning to think," he says, "that you've gotten me involved in something way more complicated than a kids' baseball team."

Laura laughs, and Stiles is kind of proud of himself—until she speaks, and then he's not sure whether to be proud or incredibly worried. "Stiles," she says, "I don't think I've told you this before, but you are very, very smart."

—

So Stiles now has Derek's number. No big deal.

It's _really hard_ not to text him right away.

But if Derek's too busy to talk to Stiles, then Stiles can be too busy to talk to Derek. He plants himself in his dad's office and bugs him until he hands over a case file. It's just a series of recent property thefts, mostly low-value stuff stolen from cars, but it keeps Stiles busy until lunch time. He's not all that hungry after his two breakfasts, so he's perfectly happy with the salad he gets for lunch. Dad’s not thrilled about the one Stiles picks up for him, but Stiles manages to find a possible lead in the robbery case, so it all evens out.

While he's out picking up lunch, though, Stiles can't help himself anymore; the number in his phone is like a physical pull and he has to use it. Besides, he needs to tell Derek what time practice is, if nothing else.

It takes him a while to figure out how to start the text. 'This is Stiles' seems kind of awkward, but just jumping into the message might be confusing. And he has to strike the right balance between professional and way-too-friendly. 

_'Got your number.,'_ he finally types. _'Practice starts at 5, need to be there early. Want a ride? -Stiles'_.

That should cover it. He stares at his phone for less than half a minute before remembering that Derek is working and there's no telling when he'll actually read the message. So Stiles pockets his phone and goes to get salads.

Scott calls when he's in line, of course. "Impeccable timing dude, really," Stiles says when he answers.

"Wait, what does that mean?" Scott sounds highly suspicious. "This isn't like that time I called last week, is it?"

"What?" Stiles asks, then he remembers. "No!" He glances around to…make sure no one realizes what Scott's referring to? Paranoia isn't logical, okay.

"Just checking. Since you apparently no longer honor the _rule_ —"

" _Scott_ ," Stiles cuts him off, exasperated, "I'm in line to get lunch for me and my dad. Why the hell'd it take you so long to call me back, anyway?"

"Uh," Scott says, and then Stiles remembers that Allison was around that morning and didn't have to work until later.

"Nevermind, _hypocrite_ ," Stiles says, a little amused in spite of himself. And not at all jealous that Scott has somebody to share morning fun times with. Somewhat wistful, maybe, but not jealous.

"Dude," Scott says, but leaves it at that. "So is something going on, or did you just miss me?"

"I—" Stiles starts to say, then glances around again and stops himself. "Can't talk about it here," he adds in an undertone.

"What?" And now Scott's worried. "Did something happen? Are you okay? Is your dad okay?"

Stiles laughs. "We're fine, Scott, it's nothing like that. Nothing bad. Well, hopefully."

"Okay…oh, is it something about Derek?" And now the asshole's grinning, Stiles can hear it.

"Uh," Stiles says, as the last person in front of him finishes up at the counter. "Maybe. It's my turn, dude, I gotta go. You're not working, right? I'll call you in a couple hours, when I'm done at the station."

"Yeah, okay," Scott agrees easily. "You can tell me all about what your crush did today."

"I don't know why I'm friends with you," Stiles says, but he knows Scott knows that actually means _thank you you are awesome I totally want to tell you all about it_.

"Because no one else will put up with you," is the reply, which Stiles knows means _love you too, man_.

"Later, dude," Stiles says, grinning as he hangs up the phone. Scott's the best, really.

— 

It's after lunch when the reply to the text comes: _'Sure'_.

Very verbose, Derek is.

Still, Stiles is unsuccessfully biting back a smile as he replies. _'Be ready at 4:30,’_ he types, and thinks about adding that Derek should wear something he doesn't mind getting dirty in, except obviously he can't _phrase_ it like that. And would it be weird to tell Derek how to dress? And should he not presume that Derek even has clothes he's picky about?

He decides to let Derek figure his clothes out on his own. To be honest, Stiles is a little curious about what he'll wear. Stiles has, as far as he can remember, never actually seen Derek in anything except the restaurant-brand T-shirts. Hell, he's never actually seen Derk _outside_ of the restaurant, except maybe when Stiles was too young to care.

Lots of firsts, today.

It's both exciting and slightly terrifying.

The rest of the time at the station goes by fairly quickly; Stiles finds the lead in the theft case, and then is so desperate not to think about practice that he finds himself agreeing to make some copies and do some filing for the deputies. Then suddenly it's three o'clock and he needs to talk to Scott like _now_ or he's not going to make it through the rest of the afternoon.

"It sounds like dating to me," Scott says, when Stiles is safely at home and has explained the situation. 

Stiles rolls his eyes. "There's nothing _romantic_ about it. It's just a mutually beneficial exchange of time and services."

"Uh-huh. It sounds like Derek needs an excuse to spend time with you and he's found two. One of them is pretty obvious, by the way."

" _Scott_ ," Stiles whines. "Don't get my hopes up. I mean, I know it's maybe a little suspicious that in return for helping with the team he's asking for my tongue to be at his beck and call—"

" _Ew_ ," Scott interrupts, pointedly. 

"—But I don't know, he's really into his job. This could be a totally legit thing for him, needing a taste-tester."

"I guess." Scott does not sound convinced. "What are you gonna do if it isn't?"

Stiles opens his mouth to respond, then closes it. Thinks. "I have no idea," he says, finally. "Jump up and down in childish glee?"

Scott laughs. "So you're over the whole 'can't-date-him-while-I'm-coaching' thing?"

"Actually, no," Stiles says with a sigh. He was trying not to think about that. "This makes it worse, us coaching together. It wouldn't be fair to the team for us to get involved and then break up halfway through the season."

"See, _now_ that makes sense," Scott agrees. "So, Stiles, what do you _want_ to happen?"

"I don't know," Stiles replies, a little piteously. "I mean, it doesn't really matter either way, does it? He's either interested or he isn't, and I'll either find out or I won't. If it comes to it I'll just explain why it's a bad idea right now. But dude, that—I don't even _know_ if that's even something I need to worry about. I guess for now I'll just coach baseball, y'know? Eat lots of free food. Hang out with the hottest dude in Beacon Hills, possibly in the state of California, who I had a major crush on in high school. _No big deal_."

"It's only 'possibly' because I'm still in California, right?"

"You're still my favorite, Scott," Stiles tells him, amused. Part of him wants to ask if Scott's still planning on moving back to Beacon Hills after graduation, but it's a sensitive subject and Stiles isn't feeling up to potential devastating disappointment right now.

"That doesn't answer the question, but I'll allow it. So, Derek aside, you nervous about your first real practice?"

"Yeah," Stiles admits. "The kids were great on Tuesday, but they were trying to get on the team. Now that they're on it they might turn into little brats, who knows. Really I'm more worried about the parents."

"They're just people, Stiles," Scott says reasonably. "I mean, I know we lucked out with the best parents in the whole world, but other parents aren't that bad."

"This coming from the guy who tells horror stories about his girlfriend's parents on a regular basis." Stiles doesn’t mention Scott’s dad, because there’s no need to. He stopped counting as a parent a long time ago.

"Um," Scott says, because yeah, there's no arguing that one. " _Most_ other parents aren't that bad?"

Stiles sighs dramatically. "Maybe I can make Derek handle the parents? He's apparently not a people-person—which, big surprise there, right?—but Laura says he's bad with kids, too, so—"

"Wait, he's bad with kids and doesn't like people and you asked him to help you _coach_?"

"First of all, he offered," Stiles counters, and he doesn't know whether he's actually feeling defensive or just pretending to. "After his mom and sister talked to him about it but it still counts. And second, dude, you think I'm _good_ with kids? I haven't been around kids since _we_ were kids, I have no idea what I'm doing."

"That's kind of my point. Wouldn't it be better to get help from someone who _does_ know what they're doing? Not just someone you want to make out with?"

"I appreciate you going with the least lewd option there, thank you for that." There's an argument for the rest of it, Stiles just knows it. He doesn't know what it _is_ , but he knows it exists. "But look, this is like, not even short-notice, it's no-notice, and I hadn't asked anyone and Derek offered and—okay, Scott, if you had been there, you wouldn't have turned him down, either."

"Fine, fine," Scott says, because he knows Stiles is _right_ , thank you. "It's gonna be awesome, Stiles. Hey, maybe I can come up one weekend to watch one of your games."

"Don't tease me, Scott," Stiles says, and he's more than half-serious.

"Dude, I wouldn't. I'll see if I can manage it, okay? Send me the team schedule."

"I'm holding you to this, Scotty-boy," Stiles says, still trying to sound serious but now he's too happy for it. He hasn't seen Scott in _so long_. Since, like, graduation, and that was a whole three-and-a-half months ago. _Forever_ ago.

"You have to have a good enough team so that I'm not wasting a trip. Speaking of, shouldn't you be going soon?"

Stiles looks for a clock and— "Crap, yes, I gotta get ready. Bye, dude."

"Bye, Stiles."

—

Stiles makes it to Halefire at 4:29—perfectly on time—and finds Derek waiting on the sidewalk for him. His heart does that funny thing again at the sight, and it needs to _quit that_ , it's game time. Or practice time. Or, well, it will be, soon.

Before Stiles can have a nice internal debate on whether to get out of the car or not, Derek walks up and opens the passenger-side door. "Hey," Stiles says with a smile. "You ready?"

"Yeah," Derek says, with what might be called an eyebrow shrug. It suggests that he doesn't really know what he's ready for and can only guess that he is, in fact, ready. "Are you?"

"Man I hope so," Stiles says honestly. He puts the Jeep in gear and is about to go when he notices Derek looking around the interior, and braces himself for something unfriendly to be said. There's a list of people who have been verbally _displeased_ with the Jeep and Stiles was really hoping not to add Derek to that list.

"I take it that means you have whatever was so important to get at the bookstore? What was it, anyway?"

" _Shit_ ," Stiles says, because no, he _completely forgot_ to actually go to the bookstore after he left Halefire. And he didn't look around his room for notebooks, either. "Okay, I gotta—they're still open, right?" He puts the Jeep back in park and turns it off, then rushes out the door. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be back in just a—"

The bookstore is, luckily, open. He grabs two spiral notebooks and a pack of mechanical pencils, then sprints back to the Jeep. He feels kind of—like a complete idiot, but he's pretty sure he catches a hint of that amused smile on Derek's face as he buckles himself back in, so. Worth it?

"Shut up," he says, shoving the bag at Derek.

"Notebooks? That's what you needed?"

"Yeah. I printed out team rosters for us but those don't have a lot of room for taking notes, so."

"Taking notes on what?"

Stiles sends Derek a sideways glance before focusing back on the road. "Are you serious right now? On the kids, man. What they're good at, what they need to work on, if they seem to actually hate baseball, whatever. Coach stuff."

"You've done this before?"

"No," Stiles says with a laugh. "But I've been on sports teams. Coaches are always writing crap down."

"So you're basing your coaching strategy entirely off of assumptions?"

Stiles fights a smile, because that was actually kind of insulting. "Not entirely. I've also seen lots of sports movies."

"Good to know I'm working with someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"I know more than the kids know, and that's pretty much all that matters."

Derek actually laughs, a little, maybe, at that. There is a laugh-like exhale that comes from the other side of the vehicle. Stiles is counting it. 

"Okay, so I sent an e-mail to all the team parents earlier saying you'll be helping out with the team. Laura says I'll need more parents to volunteer, but I have no idea what they'd even do. It's not like the team is huge, and it looks like the fall season is pretty much a just-for-fun thing, so it's not like we need to micro-manage every aspect of these kids and the games. Oh, well, we'll need people to pitch at the games and make calls at the bases, but I don't see why we'd need extra help at practices. But I put in the e-mail that we might need volunteers, just in case."

"The kids don't pitch the ball themselves? Why not?"

"Um, because they're ten? Some of them could do it, maybe, but not for a whole game. And this is all about participation, so we'd have to let all of them have a turn. Which we will, at practice, but for the real games it's better for an adult to do it. Not me, because pitching was never my strong suit, and also I don't want to accidentally hit a kid in the head. Also I'll be too busy coaching."

"Marco could pitch," Derek says—Marco is Laura’s son—and okay, that's kind of adorable. 

"Probably," Stiles agrees. "Kid's got an arm. And I thought everyone's supposed to call him Marc?"

"I'm not everyone." Stiles can't tell if Derek is smiling without looking at him, and that would be way too obvious so instead he bites at his lip and tries not to implode from Derek being cute about his nephew. Possibly, agreeing to let the guy help with the team was a terrible idea for yet another reason.

They get to the field, and thankfully there aren't any early arrivals that beat them there. Stiles turns the Jeep off and turns around to reach around in the back seat for his backpack. It moved further away during the drive but he manages to snag it and sit back in his seat. Derek's staring out the passenger window, and Stiles gives himself just a second to be distracted by his jawline.

"I made up a rough schedule for practice," Stiles says, fishing in the bag for the paper he shoved in there a few days ago. When he finds it he pulls it and the extra glove out and hands them both over. "This is for you, too, since obviously you don't have your own. It's my dad's and it's pretty old, but it should work for today."

"I need a glove?" Derek asks, staring down at it.

"Um, you're coaching a baseball team, so yes," Stiles says, each word deliberate.

Derek's forehead furrows a little at that, which is funny. "If this is a baseball team, why are they playing tag at practice?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "At the _end_ of practice. It's a way to get them to run without making them hate it. Easier to do it at the end so I don't have to make them focus after. You want to make next week's schedule?"

"No, no. Just trying to learn, Coach." He glances over as he says it, and Stiles narrows his eyes, because he can't tell if Derek's being sarcastic.

Derek looks back at the paper, but not before a hint of a smirk crosses his face. "So what do I need to do?"

"Make sure none of the kids run off when I'm not looking?" At Derek's questioning look, Stiles shrugs and reaches up to scratch at his neck. "I, uh, I'm not sure, exactly," he admits. "I made the schedule before I knew you'd be helping. We'll figure it out as we go, I guess."

"So you want me to just stand around?" 

"Stand around, watch kids, look pretty," Stiles says offhand, and it's supposed to be a joke, but Derek's eyes get wide in surprise and Stiles feels his heartbeat kick up a few notches. "Shut up, you know you're pretty," Stiles manages, then scrambles out of the car and slams the door behind him, his whole body heating up.

It occurs to him that that was probably not the best parting shot. Basically, he just made this practice even more awkward than it was already going to be. Awesome!

He walks towards the little storage building, trying to think about _baseball_ and not about accidentally hitting on Derek, and hears the other car door close. By the time he gets the door unlocked and open Derek has pretty much caught up.

"Here, take these," he says, handing Derek a bucket of baseballs that he has to carry along with the glove and the bag from the bookstore. In the half a glance Stiles takes he sees that Derek is also now wearing sunglasses, which, where the hell was he keeping those?

Stiles shoulders his backpack and grabs a few bats, then turns and walks back to the field, Derek trailing silently along.

Yep, first practice is off to a _great_ start.

—

Okay, it gets better after that. Stiles introduces Derek to the team and their parents, and he's pretty sure a couple moms who weren't planning on staying to watch decide to on the spot. Not like he can blame them, of course. The kids, on the other hand, are wholly unimpressed with Derek and how awkward he is with them. The exception to his awkwardness is Marc, who for his part can't seem to decide whether it's awesome or highly inconvenient that his uncle is now helping with his baseball team.

And yeah, the whole thing's adorable. Stiles distracts himself from it by trying to act like a Real Coach—keeping the kids excited, telling them what to do, making encouraging comments and writing down what needs to be improved. He starts practice with some warm-ups: running laps around the diamond and short throws and catches in pairs. Then he tries teaching them the rules of baseball, which most of them seem to have a vague idea about already, but everyone's at least a little fuzzy on the details. This includes Derek, who Stiles catches staring at him during the explanation like he's listening intently. It does not at all make Stiles stumble over his words. Nope.

After the fairly basic explanation of how the game actually works, Stiles splits them up into two teams to run through the logistics of everything. For 10-year-olds, they're…not terrible. They're good at running, but not necessarily when they're supposed to be running. They're very enthusiastic about throwing the ball, but it usually doesn't end up anywhere near the person trying to catch it. If it does, and if the kid actually manages to catch the ball, they get so excited they forget what they need to do with it. And he's definitely, definitely going to have to work one-on-one with most of the team to seriously improve some batting averages.

It's a lot to watch at once, especially from the pitcher's mound, so he's also going to have to teach Derek how to throw a baseball. It'll be good to give him something to do besides stand around and…well, look pretty. And imposing. Pretty imposing?

Towards the end of practice Stiles goes over his three 'team rules' with the kids again, and then starts them off on their game of tag by being 'it' first. 

"Thought you didn't know what you were doing," Derek says, as they watch the kids run around and chase each other.

"Who needs experience when you have the Internet," Stiles says with a shrug. "Wait, was that a compliment?"

"Laura could have picked worse," is all Derek says. He's still wearing those dumb sunglasses, which makes his expression even harder to read.

"I'm counting it as a compliment," Stiles says matter-of-factly. "And next week you're trading the sunglasses for a baseball cap. You look more like security than a coach."

"I need to come back next week?"

Stiles turns his head to look more fully at Derek, because he can't tell if that was a joke or not. "Bored already? I'll give you something to do next time, I promise."

"No, it's just," Derek says, shrugging slightly and waving his hand half-heartedly in the direction of the kids. "You seem to have everything handled."

"Oh." Stiles is feeling a little impressive, right now. "I don't, though. I forgot someone would need to pitch during practices, when we’re not letting the kids try, so that's going to be your job, after we teach you how."

"I know how to throw a ball," Derek says, only a little dryly.

"Well, you can prove it, then. Also, I need someone to help me put crap away at the end of practice. And the kids seem to like you being here."

"The kids couldn’t care less whether I'm here," Derek points out, not incorrectly.

Stiles means to say 'That'll change, they're kids,' but what comes out is: "Maybe that was just me, then." And then he walks away without waiting for a reaction.

"Okay guys, bring it in, practice is over," he hollers at the kids as he goes. Parents are starting to show up, so he should probably get them calmed down at least a little. When they're all more or less in a crowd around him again he asks if they had fun and when the next practice is, and reminds them their first game is only a little over two weeks away.

Laura walks up as all the kids run for their parents, and she sends Marc to say bye to Derek, who—is picking up stray baseballs, apparently, which, now that Stiles thinks about it, probably should have been done before the kids were running around the field, oops. Good thing no one got hurt; an injury at the first practice would have been bad for his coaching cred. And bad for the kid, too.

"I see you're both still standing," Laura says to Stiles, who's watching to make sure kids get to their parents okay, and trying to seem approachable in case any parents need to speak with him.

"Your confidence in me is inspiring, truly," he replies, glancing over. "Who wanted me to do this, again?"

She smirks. "It's just nice to be right."

"Well, Cora was right too," Stiles points out, deliberately not looking towards Derek when he says it. "Derek's going to be a big help. You should thank her for me."

"Yeah, right," Laura scoffs. "If she _was_ right, she's not hearing it from me."

Stiles huffs a laugh. "Are all siblings as weird as you guys?"

Laura opens her mouth, then hesitates, which is unusual for her so now she has his attention. "I wouldn't know," she finally says, almost carefully. "I'm sure every family has its own weirdness."

"You're right about that," Stiles says, and then Marc's back.

"Okay kiddo, let's head out," Laura tells him, and after they both say bye to Stiles she turns and adds, "See you Sunday, Derek," not loud, and when Stiles turns, too, Derek is—a lot closer than he was before.

"Bye, Laura," he says as he goes to drop the miscellaneous baseballs in one of the buckets, and Stiles might be imagining the note of finality in his tone.

"Sunday?" Stiles asks when they're gone. "You guys are closed on Sundays, right? I always assumed that was some kind of church thing."

"Not exactly," Derek says, coming over to stand next to Stiles to watch the rest of the kids leave. "Family dinner."

"Okay, 'family dinner' isn't anything like a church thing," Stiles tells him, a little amused. "But what, like, the whole family? What's that like?"

"Whoever's in town," Derek says with a shrug. "And it's…a family dinner, I don't know."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Derek, my family is me and my dad, and sometimes Scott and his mom. The closest I've come to a big family dinner was the year I went with Scott and his mom to her cousin's Thanksgiving. And she and her cousin pretty much hate each other so that was…interesting."

"'Interesting' works," Derek says. "It depends on who's there and what mood everyone's in. The food's always good."

"Yeah?" Stiles says, and he can't help the little grin. "You cook?"

"Me and my mom, mostly. And no, we don't have pizza. Usually."

Stiles laughs. "So what do you make, then? What _can_ you make? Besides pizza and French toast."

"Lots of things," Derek says, noncommittally. 

"Are you bragging right now?" Stiles asks, and he can just make out the eye roll.

"Stiles, I'm a trained chef, I can cook anything. If I don't know how to make it, I can find a recipe and _then_ I can cook it."

"You're totally bragging," Stiles decides. "It's okay, you're allowed to brag." Derek doesn't say anything, but Stiles doesn't miss the tiny little smirk that might be a smile in disguise.

"So are you free anytime this weekend?" Stiles asks as they're carrying stuff to the little storage shed.

"Friday and Saturday nights are our busiest times, I need to be at the restaurant," Derek says, in a tone Stiles can't immediately identify but he's too busy being incredulous because _what_.

"Dude, really? Are you seriously telling me you work six days a week from what, six in the morning to whenever-the-hell at night, and then you spend your _one_ day off cooking for your whole family?"

Derek's quiet just long enough for Stiles to realize that was probably not a nice thing to say. "Running a restaurant is hard work," Derek says, not loudly, but definitely defensively. "I have a responsibility to make sure everything's taken care of."

"Dude, I get that," Stiles says, trying to sound a little apologetic. "But what about you, Derek? If you get burned out from working literally _all of the time_ who's going to take care of things then?"

"I won't get burned out. And I'm taking the time to help with these practices, aren't I?"

"Yeah," Stiles agrees, as he locks up the shed again. "Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to be all—whatever. I was just asking because we need to set up a time to come back out here; you can't learn to pitch in a kitchen."

It takes Stiles's brain approximately one-and-a-half seconds to connect a sexual innuendo with that sentence (which he's blaming on Scott, who started the whole baseball-metaphor train), but he's luckily distracted from it by Derek's odd-sounding "Oh." 

Stiles looks over, but the sunglasses make it hard to make eye contact. "It shouldn't take too long? Depending on if you're any good, at least. Oh and we should probably like, figure out a new schedule for practices."

"You need my help with that?"

"Yes, _assistant coach_ , I need some assistance. You'll have to tear yourself away from your ovens for a couple hours. It won't be too painful, I promise."

"You're not convincing me of that right now," Derek says, but his voice is back to a normal dry tone, so Stiles isn't worried. "I have some time Sunday morning."

"When you're not actually working," Stiles says, with a total lack of surprise. "That's okay. I'll just make baseball so incredibly awesome you _want_ to take time off for it."

"Again," Derek says, with a sort of false patience, "I'm already taking time off for these practices."

"A, from what I understand you're not _supposed_ to be working during practices, and B, dude, you're doing this because your mom wants you to, not because you just have a general love of baseball. We're gonna fix that though."

"Really."

"Yep," Stiles says as they head back to the Jeep. Cleanup after practice was much easier with two people. "Luckily for you I already have a deep abiding love for pizza, so your half of this deal should be a lot easier."

"Liking pizza and knowing food are two different things, and the first one doesn't make the second one any easier." 

"So you say. I'll be the best pizza-taster you've ever had, you'll see."

Stiles is pretty sure Derek's rolling his eyes, but since they're getting in the Jeep he can't really see. The drive back to the restaurant—and Derek's apartment—Stiles fills by talking about practice. He’s going over it in his head anyway, so he figures he should let Derek in on his thought processes. Plus he wants to see if Derek noticed anything he didn't.

"They don't seem to be very good," is Derek's oh-so-helpful opinion.

"They're _ten_ , Derek," Stiles says, and he feels an edge of protectiveness to the words. "And most of them have never played baseball before. That's the point, we're _teaching_ them. We'll see how good _you_ are your first time, buddy."

"When's the first game?"

"Two weeks from Sunday. And no, I don't know if they'll be good enough to win. I just want them to know how to _play_ , by then. It's gonna depend on the other team, anyway."

"Who's the other team?"

"I…don't remember. It's on the schedule. I'll bring you a copy on Sunday?"

"You're not coming by in the morning?"

Stiles nearly puts on the breaks just so he can properly scrutinize Derek's face after saying that. Instead he takes a long glance over. Derek's still wearing the stupid sunglasses, dammit.

"I can," Stiles answers, trying to sound nonchalant and not cautious or overeager. "I work in the morning, but like I said the library doesn't open until ten and I don't have to be there early. So I can be by the restaurant around seven or so."

"Six would be better," Derek says, echoing his words from earlier.

"Let me work up to it, dude," Stiles says with a slight laugh. "Seven is already early for me."

They pull up to the restaurant soon after that, and Stiles waits for Derek to get out. "Thanks for helping, today," he says, only a little awkwardly.

Derek nods, a little stiffly, and then seems to hesitate before reaching for the door handle. "See you tomorrow, Stiles."

"Yeah, see you, Derek," Stiles says, smiling, as Derek gets out of the car.

Okay, so spending time with Derek outside the restaurant was actually kind of awesome, overall. Maybe Stiles _will_ have to thank Cora one day. Far, far in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laura's kid is named after one of my favorite characters in _Animorphs_ (I was completely obsessed in middle school).


	5. Chapter 5

Seven is really freaking early. Maybe it wasn't when Stiles was still in school and working part-time, but after a summer of only getting up before nine to have breakfast with his dad (and then usually going right back to sleep), seven is annoyingly early.

Of course, it's kind of offset by the nervous excitement at seeing Derek again, but Stiles is sure that's only temporary. Maybe.

He managed to resist the urge to text Derek after they parted ways the night before and ask him if he was spending the rest of his evening working. Stiles figured he was, and he probably wouldn't appreciate Stiles making a point of it. Derek _does_ work too much, and he can totally see now why his sisters worry about him, but Stiles is taking a more subtle approach by luring Derek away from the kitchen with only the promise of his company.

That only works if Derek actually _enjoys_ Stiles's company, but honestly, so far so good on that one. Stiles is trying really hard not to get ahead of himself here, but at the very least he's pretty sure they're headed towards a solid friendship. And it will be really, really cool to have a friend to hang out with again, what with Scott still at school and all.

(Would be cooler to have a _boyfriend_ , but again, not getting ahead of himself.)

Anyway, he didn't text Derek last night but he does in the morning: _'So do you have coffee or what'_

The reply is actually quicker than he was expecting and comes in while Stiles is brushing his teeth. He checks it anyway. _'No coffee. Ruins the palette.'_

"What?!"

After wiping off the drops of toothpaste that he sprayed all over his phone, Stiles texts back furiously, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth: _'R u kidding me do u kno what time it is'_

He finishes brushing his teeth in petulant silence, and is back in his room when he gets the reply. _'Apparently too early for you to spell properly.'_

 _'Betrayal does that to a person, Derek_ ,’ Stiles types back, and dammit, he is not going to smile about this. It's too early and he was just denied coffee, Derek does not deserve a smile.

After that Stiles finishes getting ready, and his phone buzzes again right as he's walking out the door. _'You can have coffee before you leave'_ is the message, and Stiles wonders if that means Derek's going to make him coffee.

And there's the smile. Crap.

—

The kitchen, when Stiles arrives, has been transformed into a little buffet of seasonings and spices. Each one is in a little jar and has a little label, and it's actually kind of adorable. There's also crackers and water and about a million tiny little spoons.

"You didn't eat anything, did you?" are the first words out of Derek's mouth.

"No," Stiles says, not adding the part where he figured—and hoped—Derek would feed him again.

"Good. Eat some crackers."

"Um." Stiles looks at the plate of crackers, then back at Derek. "Why?"

"Did you brush your teeth before you got here?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, wondering where this is going.

"Ever drank orange juice after brushing your teeth?"

"Oh." He gets it now. Duh. "I'm assuming this is less about orange juice and more toothpaste making stuff in general taste weird. And the crackers are to reset my tastebuds, or whatever?"

Derek nods. "And so you'll have something on your stomach. Being hungry is too much of a distraction."

 _You're_ too much of a distraction, Stiles almost says, but his spotty sense of self-preservation manages to contain that one.

Five crackers and a considerable amount of water later, Derek decides they can begin. He gives Stiles a literal history lesson on each and every seasoning before letting him taste it, and if Derek doesn't stop being _stupidly cute_ Stiles is going to break something. Possibly his own nose when he slams his face down on the counter in utter defeat.

It's just—Derek is not the most outgoing of people, but like his sisters have implied and Stiles has only started to see, the kitchen is where Derek is comfortable and this cooking shit is what he _knows_. Maybe he's bossier, grumpier even, when the kitchen is full and Derek is directing a staff—because people are not his thing, and Stiles is starting to get that, too—but with just Stiles and a counter full of ingredients in an otherwise empty kitchen, Derek seems very much in his element and Stiles is only too happy to be along for the ride.

"And this is fennel." Derek holds up one of the little jars, plainly labeled 'fennel,' and hands it to Stiles. They started with the most-used spices and herbs in pizza-making—basil, oregano, garlic—and have been moving along the line. "Fennel seed, actually. All parts of the fennel plant are edible, but the seeds are what gives Italian sausage its distinctive flavor."

Stiles doesn't even have to pretend to be listening intently to these lessons, because not only is Derek fucking fascinating right now but Stiles has always been a fan of trivia for things he's interested in. Right now, that includes all things Derek, which includes all things pizza…which includes fennel, apparently.

There's a process to this education: Derek talks, Stiles listens, then Stiles gives the jar a shake and opens it up to sniff at whatever's inside. The fennel is instantly recognizable; he knows that smell, even if he never had a name for it. Then Derek takes the jar back and uses a tiny spoon to scoop out a tiny bit and spread it on a plate so Stiles can see what it looks like. Finally, Stiles uses the spoon to get another tiny bit from the jar and taste it. (He wanted to know why he couldn't just use his finger to pick up what was on the plate, but Derek said that skin has a taste and it would compromise the whole thing. Or something, Stiles maybe got mildly distracted thinking about Derek tasting his skin. Whatever.) They talk about the taste—Stiles has to try to use words he doesn't have to describe it, before Derek gives him the real words. Stiles makes notes (he actually felt bad when Derek asked if he'd brought a notebook with him and he said no, but Derek found him some paper and a pen), then he eats a cracker or two and drinks some water and they move on.

Derek has a lot to say about his ingredients, so a couple hours later they still haven't gotten through everything. "We're stopping here for today," he says. "If you do too many at once you won't be able to keep them apart."

"Oh, okay," Stiles says, then checks the clock. "Well, it's only nine, so I have time to help you clean up before I go."

One of Derek's eyebrows raises slightly, and Stiles wants to touch it. Badly. "Aren't you hungry?" Derek asks.

"Uh," Stiles says, very intelligently. "I've had like twenty crackers, dude. I'm not going to run off and leave you with all the clean-up just so I can grab some food before work. You did promise me coffee, though."

Derek rolls his eyes. "This is a kitchen, Stiles. Are you hungry, or not?"

"Yes?" Stiles says, because he is, crackers or no, but he's not sure what the right answer is here.

Derek turns and disappears around a corner, then reappears a moment later with a cardboard box. "Jars in the box," he says. "Crackers in the bag. Plates and spoons in the sink. Think you can handle that?"

"Gee, Derek, I dunno, sounds kind of complicated," Stiles says, only mildly sarcastically. He takes the box and peers inside: there's a giant plastic baggie in there, which is presumably where the crackers are going. "So are you making breakfast? What're you making?"

"Food," Derek says as he turns and disappears again.

"Very informative," Stiles calls after him, but this is actually awesome, Derek cooking him breakfast two days in a row. If Stiles didn't know better he'd think Derek actually liked having him around. 

…Wait, no, all evidence thus far points to Derek actually liking Stiles being around. He keeps forgetting that. (It doesn't happen much, okay.)

Unless Derek is just so completely desperate to have someone to test his recipes on that he's willing to put up with the constant annoyance that Stiles is known to be, which…nope, doesn't explain the breakfast. Twice. Okay, cool. 

By the time Stiles has put everything away, the kitchen smells like awesome things cooking, and Stiles follows the sounds to the stove, where Derek is making omelettes. With pizza toppings.

Specifically, the same toppings Stiles ordered on that first pizza when he came in to pick up the check.

"Dude," Stiles says, and sooner or later he's just going to take the plunge and touch Derek and see what happens, "are you making me an omelette with my favorite pizza toppings?"

"Those are your _favorites_?" Derek gives Stiles a sidelong glance that's just a hint incredulous. "I thought you were picking things at random."

"Oh my God, there is nothing wrong with my topping choices."

"So why are you getting so defensive about it?"

"Because I am feeling persecuted," Stiles says, crossing his arms and leaning up against the counter, watching Derek cook. "Scott makes fun of me every single time we order pizza—but he sure as hell eats what I order every time, so _obviously_ he just doesn't want to admit my culinary genius."

"Scott?" Derek asks, as he deftly—deftly!—flips the omelette in the skillet.

"My best friend," Stiles clarifies, not letting himself entertain the hope that Derek was worried at hearing another guy's name. "We grew up together. You've probably seen him; we used to come here after school sometimes. That was before I'd perfected my topping choices, though."

Derek plates the omelette, drizzles what looks like marinara sauce over it, adds some grated Parmesan, and hands it to Stiles. "So why isn't he helping you with the team?" 

Stiles is too busy staring at the plate to answer. "Dude, is this, like, a pizza omelette?"

"Omelette calzone," Derek says.

"I take it back, you are definitely the culinary genius in this room," Stiles says appreciatively. "Are we sitting at the same table?"

"You can," Derek says, turning back to the stove and starting a second omelette. "I don't have the time today." Stiles hesitates, hovering, until Derek glances at him again. "Go ahead and eat, Stiles. You can help clean up when you're done."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says, but there's no way he's going to sit at the table by himself. He settles back against the counter and cuts into his omelette. "Is there—is that more marinara sauce inside? And cheese?"

"Mozzarella," Derek confirms. 

"Omelette calzone," Stiles says, in amazement. "Fucking genius." Two bites in, after burning his mouth on the first one and making ridiculous happy noises on the second, he remembers Derek had asked a question. "Scott's still in school," he says between bites. "When we started college we used to joke that we should both get a Ph.D. so we could call each other 'Doctor' all the time, except Scott decided to actually go through with it."

"You didn't?"

"Nah, I decided six years of school was enough. For now, at least. The state of California doesn't seem to agree, but at least the Beacon Hills library is happy to employ someone with a Master's."

Stiles is focusing on his food, but he does catch Derek giving him a brief eyebrow-raise. "Is that what your degree is in? Shelving books?"

"Dude," Stiles says immediately, indignant on behalf of all librarians everywhere. "Library sciences is a legit degree with a seriously legit amount of work involved, don't even. But no, I didn't major in it. Maybe I _should_ have, but—how do you not know what my degree is in?"

A more deliberate eyebrow-raise, this time. "Was I supposed to?"

"No, I just…I dunno, you and your sisters seem to take communication very seriously, I guess I figured Laura would have told you."

"Believe it or not, Stiles, my conversations with Laura do not always revolve around you."

"'Always,'" Stiles echoes, and he can't even stop the smug grin. "So they do sometimes."

There's a minute movement of Derek's head that Stiles is sure accompanies an eye-roll. "Before she got you to coach the baseball team, all she ever said was that the sheriff's kid was home from college and the sheriff seemed happy about it—even if his kid just hangs around the station and annoys the deputies all day."

"Aww, I knew my dad liked having me back," Stiles says, exaggerating his tone a bit but genuinely pleased to hear he's had a positive effect on his dad's mood. "And I do not annoy them, I've solved like three cases since I've been helping out there!"

Derek gives him a disbelieving look before going back to his cooking.

"Okay, two and a half. And I didn't solve them entirely on my own, I guess, but I did provide valuable insight. They haven't kicked me out, anyway, so I must not be _that_ annoying. It's only a matter of time before they admit they need me and create an official internship."

"You want to be a cop?" Derek asks, turning off the fire and plating his own omelette.

Stiles laughs. "Do you know how much paperwork is involved in being a cop? And the hours are shitty. Plus, the most exciting thing that happens around here is the occasional lost hiker or even more occasional wild animal attack. No, I want to be a consultant. Which is why I majored in criminal psychology."

"Psychology?" Derek turns to lean back against the counter next to Stiles. Stiles's heart totally does not flutter at the proximity. "Doesn't that usually require a Ph.D.?"

"Ugh," Stiles groans through the last bite of omelette he shoveled in his mouth. "Not you too. I might not be a _doctor_ , but that doesn't mean I don't know anything. I just need some more real-world experience, is all."

"Helping your dad catch what, purse-snatchers?"

" _Ass_ hole," Stiles says, way too close to fondly, and lightly shoves into Derek's shoulder with his own. Or at least tries to; Derek kind of…doesn't move. "Wow," he says, and then forgoes all claims to good judgement by reaching up and actually pushing at Derek's shoulder. He still doesn't budge. "You're like a tree, dude."

"I don't think that's the usual metaphor," Derek says, and Stiles is going to pretend that's amusement in his tone. It totally could be. "If you need something to do, Stiles, there's food you could be putting away."

"Oh, right." As he says it Stiles realizes he's still touching Derek and pulls his hand back, embarrassed. But damn the guy has a nice shoulder-slash-upper-arm-area. And hey, the casual-touching barrier has now been breached, so that's cool. "I'll uh, put my plate in the sink and get right on that."

Stiles gets everything put away following Derek's instructions while he eats his breakfast, but Derek still insists on doing the dishes himself. (Stiles is beginning to suspect Derek is worried he'll break something. There is no basis for such an unfounded unspoken accusation.) He does at least tell Stiles where the coffee and coffee maker are.

"Pick whatever you want," Derek says as Stiles wanders over to the specified cabinet.

"I thought you were supposed to be making me coffee," Stiles calls back.

"I said you could have coffee, not that I would make it," Derek points out, completely accurately. "You're lucky I'm not sending you to Starbucks."

"Lucky because of the convenience factor, or lucky because you're a coffee snob and think Starbucks is the dirge of the earth," Stiles wonders aloud, but he's pretty sure he gets his answer when he opens the cabinet and finds like five different little paper bags with handwriting on them. "Wait, do you guys grind your own coffee? You're not even a breakfast place!"

"Shitty coffee is shitty coffee no matter when you drink it." Yep, total coffee snob. Add that to the list of inexplicable things Stiles finds attractive about Derek Hale.

"Oh my God," Stiles says, under his breath, both at Derek's ridiculousness and his own. He grabs one of the bags— _he_ is not a coffee snob—and the little scoop sitting with them, then closes the door. "Am I making enough for both of us?"

"Yeah, go ahead." And now Stiles is entertaining thoughts of sitting down and chatting with Derek over snobby coffee, but he knows it's more likely he'll be shooed out the door with a to-go cup as soon as it's done.

Which is pretty much what happens, except Halefire apparently doesn't have any coffee to-go cups so Derek lets Stiles borrow one of his own: a wolf-covered tumbler that, as he explains when Stiles makes a comment, was a gift from Laura when she and her husband took Marc to a nature place the year before.

Part of Stiles is incredibly curious what Laura would say to see Stiles with the gift she gave Derek, but since there's really no way to predict how that would go it's maybe for the best that he's going to the library and not the station when he leaves here.

"Thanks again for breakfast…again," Stiles says as he's about to head out. "See you on Sunday? So we can start working on that love of baseball, because otherwise this whole deal is gonna seem pretty unbalanced."

"What do you mean?"

"Because you keep feeding me, dude," Stiles explains with a smile. "Like, seriously good food. And this was fun, today, learning all that crap about spices."

"I'm quizzing you next week," Derek says, and Stiles can't even tell if the seriousness is genuine or put-on. His smile breaks into a grin either way.

"I'll keep that in mind for your training. But really, Derek, far be it from me to discourage cooking me awesome food, but you know it's not necessary, right?" Stiles doesn't know why he's saying this, except that he just wants to _know_ that Derek is giving him special treatment and not acting out of a sense of obligation. It's important. "The deal Laura made with me was for regular menu stuff during regular business hours, when you guys aren't too busy. Amazing breakfasts not included."

"I know I don't have to cook you breakfast, Stiles," Derek says, like it's something completely obvious. "But I do have to get the kitchen ready for lunch, so." Then he points, at the door, and yes, that is a hint Stiles can definitely take.

"Right, okay," Stiles says, backing up a few steps towards the door. That's probably a really bad idea, so he turns around. "I'll text you," he adds before he leaves, but doesn't say 'about Sunday' because he wants to give himself an open window to text Derek.

There's no response, presumably because Derek is in 'kitchen mode,' so Stiles rolls his eyes—definitely fondly—and heads to work, sipping at his (admittedly awesome) coffee.

—

On his lunch break, Stiles calls Scott to tell him about the morning, but he gets his voicemail. So instead he tells him they need to have a Skype chat that weekend, no excuses, and also that he's e-mailing Scott the team's schedule so he can pick which game he's coming to.

Friday and Saturday are uneventful as usual; Stiles has dinner with his dad on Friday, Skypes with Scott Saturday morning, and then works at the library that afternoon. He thinks about going in to Halefire, but he remembers Derek said they're busiest on the weekend so decides against it.

He does, however, text Derek.

 _'My dad seems unimpressed with my newfound knowledge of our spice cabinet_ ,’ he sends on Friday.

He doesn't get a response until almost one a.m., and yeah, he's still awake, whatever. _'It's an underappreciated skill set.'_

Stiles grins instantly, and he's typing back before actually thinking about what he's saying. _'Not by me, dude. I appreciate every facet of your culinary genius.'_

He sends it and then thinks maybe responding immediately seems too eager? But uh, too late now, so. He actually gets a text back just a couple minutes later, implying that Derek's done for the night, or close to it. Stiles wonders if he's up in his apartment by now, and that thought shouldn't make him a little tingly, but it does.

_'It doesn't take a genius to recognize some spices, Stiles. Obviously.'_

Stiles laughs out loud at the text, and mentally filters through a few different replies before settling on one. _‘Ooh burn. Spicy burn.’_

As an afterthought, he adds: _'If you can spare some time out of your busy schedule tomorrow you should go get a glove. From the sports store, they'll help you find one_ ’. 

_'I can't do that on Sunday?'_ Derek replies.

"Workaholic," Stiles mutters under his breath, but he's still smiling. Ugh. _'Nope they're closed Sunday morning. It'll only take like 20 minutes, don't you get a lunch break?'_

_'Yes, that's usually when I eat lunch.'_

There's no way to tell if that text is meant in Derek's dry tone or his sarcastic tone or if he's actually offended or annoyed or _what_ , and for possibly the first time in their burgeoning friendship, Stiles is left wondering if he's made a misstep. Damn texting. Seemed like such a good idea at the time.

He must take longer than he realized trying to figure out a response, because he gets another text first: _'I'll figure it out. Sleeping now_ ,’ and that's not exactly helpful, thanks, Derek.

Stiles only lets paranoia stop him for a few seconds before texting back _'Night’_ and then immediately worrying that was too forward, or something. He falls asleep worrying, and is woken up in the morning by Scott calling him to tell him to get on Skype.

"Dude you have a game the week of our birthdays," is the first thing Scott says when the video call is connected. 

"Good morning, Scott," Stiles replies, rubbing at his face and trying to wake up the rest of the way. Scott's apparently been up for a while.

"Morning, Stiles," Scott says, grin bright as ever. Damn, Stiles misses him. "So what are we talking about first? My visit, or your date with Derek yesterday?"

"Scooooott," Stiles whines sleepily, but Scott just laughs.

—

Stiles refrains from texting Derek on Saturday except to ask what time they're meeting on Sunday and if Derek wants a ride. He does, so Stiles is at the pizza place in the morning, waaaaay earlier than he'd ever like to be up on a Sunday. Any hopes of Derek inviting him in for breakfast are dashed by the fact that Derek is, once again, waiting on the sidewalk for him. He's holding stuff and wearing a Henley and looks far better than anyone should that early on a Sunday, but Stiles is not complaining even a little. As long as Derek isn't mad at him or anything, because Stiles still has no idea.

Like before, Derek opens the Jeep door and gets in without any prompting. Then he shoves the stuff he's holding at Stiles, which, as Stiles takes it in slight bewilderment, he realizes is a paper bag and another coffee tumbler, this time plain black. Stiles actually has the wolf one to give back to Derek today.

"Uh. What's this?" Stiles asks, now holding what smells like coffee and something very tasty.

"Breakfast. If you want it," Derek replies, sunglasses already in place and not looking at Stiles. Stiles is getting mixed messages, here.

"I could eat," he says, though, skillfully avoiding admitting that he didn't eat before he left. Because he was hoping Derek would feed him. "You didn't want coffee?"

"I already ate; that's for you."

Stiles doesn't know whether to be disappointed that he and Derek aren't having breakfast together or _fucking giddy_ that Derek _packed him food_. Like, Derek was there, in his kitchen—and maybe the one in his apartment, even, not the one in the restaurant—and making breakfast, and thought, 'hey, I should make something for Stiles, too, he would appreciate that' (okay that is probably not how it went but honestly it's better than some of the more fanciful thoughts Stiles could imagine)…and then he actually _made it_. And packed it up in a little bag. For Stiles. And fixed him coffee!

Okay, yeah, Stiles is more giddy than disappointed. And also at a complete loss because he can't drive while he's holding a paper bag and a coffee tumbler. 

…Right, put the food down. He knows how to do that.

"Okay, that—thanks, dude. I dunno what's in this bag, but it smells awesome. I'm just gonna, uh…set this in the back, I guess, until we get to the field."

"I'll hold it," Derek says, reaching out to take the bag and the cup back. Um. Okay then. "With the way you drive there'd be nothing left by the time we get there."

"Hey," Stiles says sternly, actually offended by that but unable to fully access the emotion because _breakfast made specifically for Stiles even when Stiles was nowhere around_. "I am a freaking great driver, what the hell."

"Then drive," Derek says, looking straight ahead. Stiles is _pretty sure_ he's hiding an annoying, attractive smirk. "I don't have all day."

"Oh my God, you are lucky your food's good," Stiles says, biting back an annoying, hopeless smile because he is always attracted to assholes, what the _hell_. 

On the way to the field, and after he's gotten over the comment about his driving (mostly by taking a turn too sharply on purpose, making Derek glare at him and Stiles smirk unapologetically), Stiles attempts to make smalltalk. He wisely chooses to ask about the restaurant, because, well. What else would Derek have to talk about?

It does get him talking, though—he actually half-rants for a good five minutes about an issue with one of their suppliers; Stiles is both a little lost and completely mesmerized. The only reason he's not grinning dopily at Derek through the whole thing is because he's driving.

"—Then they wanted to talk to _Talia_ , even though she was going to say the same damn thing. My mom's been buying from them for over a decade, they should know she'd be pissed about what they're doing—"

It's the most Derek's said at once, other than when he was teaching Stiles about the spices, and it's _beautiful_.

…Has Stiles mentioned this is becoming a problem. Because it's definitely already one. A hot, irritated, _adorably passionate_ problem right in his passenger seat.

"—so I wasn't able to go to the sports store. Sorry," Derek finishes up, curtly, like he's annoyed that he's apologizing. Whether it's at Stiles or himself is a good question.

"Huh?" Stiles says, then, "Oh," when he realizes Derek doesn't have a glove with him. He was distracted by food earlier and didn't notice. "Dude, that's fine, sounds like you had a lot going on. My dad's old glove is still in the back, so we can just use that."

"I was going to go," Derek adds. "I wasn't able to take lunch."

"It's fine, really Derek," Stiles says, trying to sound…something. Accepting? Sincere? Like he both believes Derek and doesn't blame him.

"It's hard to get away from the restaurant," Derek goes on, almost like he can't help himself. "There's always something else that needs to be done, that needs to be—taken care of. Fixed. Decided."

"I get that. Like, completely," Stiles says, because he does. "It's the same way for my dad, at the station. And for Scott's mom, really. She's a nurse, and like, there is _always_ something that needs to be done _right now_. It was hard for both of them, being committed to their jobs and to raising a kid." 

"Your dad managed to coach your baseball team," Derek points out.

Stiles glances over at him. "How did you…? But yeah, I mean he wasn't the sheriff then so it was different, but even when he was he made time for the important things. Like, the whole town wasn't going to suddenly become a lawless wasteland if he came to one of my lacrosse games. And if it _did_ ,” Stiles goes on, hoping he’s not overselling the point he’s trying to make (namely, that Derek deserves a _break_ ), “he had awesome deputies to handle things until he could get there. Y’know? Plus, like, he had to watch his health, too, and working all the time’s just...too much stress to be healthy for anyone."

Derek doesn't say anything else, and Stiles risks another glance to see him looking, presumably, out the window, his mouth in a slight frown, like maybe he's thinking. Or pouting. Who knows. They're almost to the field, so Stiles just keeps quiet too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Derek grinds the coffee in his apartment every morning and brings it to the restaurant. He makes different blends for different people, different times of the day, different moods. He resigns himself to the drip coffee maker in the restaurant kitchen because it's convenient, but in his own apartment he has like three different snobby coffee makers, of both the manual and automatic variety. He also cold-brews, sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think so far!
> 
> Update next Friday (the 31st). Also I have a tumblr, come say hi if you'd like: [asmalltigercat.tumblr.com](http://asmalltigercat.tumblr.com/) ♥


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